Gundam Pilots Observe Thanksgiving
by Typewriter King
Summary: This story is in the shop for refitting. Chapters 1 through 14 have been retrofitted as of June 22, 2005.
1. Gundam Pilots Observe Thanksgiving

A word of caution. Because most of this chapter is dominated by Duo, I used scriptfic and several other juvenile devices to move events at his amped pace. All other chapters operate in my normal style. Please review.

_Disclaimer:_

Operation upon the spleen will invalidate the warranty. Warranty is automatically voided if penguins are attacking the product at any time. Do not puncture or incinerate this product. If multiple copies of this product exist, you are required to purchase all of them. This product sold by weight, not volume. You may signify agreement with these terms by breathing at any time. You may not rent, lease, give away or get rid of this product. Only one copy of the product may be used for archival purposes. This is that copy. You may not reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, examine, or think about this product. Shipping damage to the product should be reported to the carrier. Consumer hereby agrees that the manufacturer of this product cannot be held liable for anything whatsoever of any kind. Upgrades might be obtainable for a small fee. Using this product in any way may be dangerous. Placing product inside a nuclear reactor may result in a hazardous condition. All modifications must be performed by a licensed mechanic. Being aware of the contents of this disclaimer invalidates your right to use the product. No liability shall be assumed for using product during thunderstorms. This equipment may or may not comply with the limits for a Class B FCC device. You have agreed to be bound by all terms of this Agreement by reading this sentence. We will not in any circumstances be liable for any other damages whatsoever arising out of the use or inability to use or supply or non-supply of the product and any accompanying hardware and written materials, and this must be a legitimate sentence because Microsoft uses it in their license agreements too.

_Gundam Wing is property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai Studios, and TV Asahi. This story is in complete compliance with Terms of Service ("TOS"). Rights to this story and all characters not the property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai Studios, and TV Ashahi (and their subsidiaries, of course) were inspired by Typewriter King, giving his the rights of this product. This product, however, is shareware, free, but not quite opens-ource. Distribution is still restricted. _

_Be aware that Typewriter King, an American citizen, is trained in the law, and with Republicans in control of the house and the senate, Habeas Corpus and your Miranda rights my be temporarily suspended should you violate this agreement. And remember, ignorance is no excuse._

Thanksgiving Day, A.C.197  
Maxwell House  
Mogadishu, Somalia

_**Dramatis Personae**_

Former Gundam Pilots 

Duo Maxwell: owner of Maxwell House, and Host.

Quatre Rebarba-Winner: owner of Quatre's Qrib and heir of the Winner Fortune.

Trowa Barton: clown and friend of Quatre and Duo. Chang WuFei: Earth Sphere UN Preventer.

**Friends of the former Gundam Pilots:**

Hilde Schbeiker: Hostess of Maxwell House, and co-owner.

Sally Poe: Preventer, Wuffe's partner.

Rashid Kurama: Maguanauc soldier (retired).

Dorothy Catalonia: Student of Political Science. Howard:

Retired Gundam Designer/Engineer.

Manager: Ring Master and General Manager of A circus.

_**Act one, scene one.**_

"Man! How did the Waltons get through all those years?" Duo found himself suffering from writer's block, just writing a multi-denomination prayer for a holiday dinner.  
"They just seem to know how to say thanks; I-I don't have any religious training! This kind of thing is Quatre's gig (sigh)," he resigned.  
"I thought this would be like one of Hilde's cakes, without tasting like one of 'em." Suddenly...

"Duo Maxwell, (raspberry)-oye," Hilde grunted, encroached within the all -concealing shadows. : You can be scum when left to yourself!"

Duo sighed again (he's that type).

"Sorry about that, I-yeah just make a lot of put-downs when I'm frustrated," he apologized.

"At least you don't vent your rage like Eminem," she consoled.

"Hey! I don't have any rage within me; I'm no WuFei Chang!"

New Voice: "Um hum, I dropped by a few hours to lend my support, but it seems I might need to schedule an anger management class." Duo: "WuFei! How y' been?" WuFei: Upset." He cracked a thin smile.

"Actually, I've been expending surplus bullets at space-mines, cleaning up, and demolishing mobile-suits. It's not just patrol for WuFei." Duo couldn't help but smile.

"So you're not bored or anything, right?" WuFei's smile contracted into a set, intense frown.

"Heck no, it's been quite a fulfilling trek from the war." Hilde moved quickly to cheer up the two somber party-poopers.

"Guys, let's go see how much fun the Sooners are having!" The baby vets nodded, and said "OK."

"As long as there's not a forgetful clown here that you could fall for," Duo joked; and gasped.

"I'm sorry, do you have your foot in your mouth or something?" There stood Trowa Barton: three strikes and you're out, Duo. "This isn't your usual flak-trap," Duo mumbled.

"This is a wonderful place, guys. How did you ever get the cash for it? 03 asked, eyeing the ambiance. Duo sighed, looked at the orange-dome roof, and explained.

"Well, it started just after Christmas of last year, when we all stopped Operation M. You see, I started thinking, Mariemaia said the new suits were a gift from her father. So, Dekim, or whatever his name was, still had money in the bank, having not spending it sic on the suits, he still had all of the Barton Foundation money in his account, saving it for some ugly purpose. So I look into it. What do y' know? I'm on the payroll. It seems that I had a boss pension waiting for me, so I cashed in. I hired a glorified ambulance chaser, and... got my retirement dough a little ahead of time. It paid for everything." Trowa and WuFei glanced at each other.

"I had no idea," Trowa said blankly.

"Me neither, son of a gun," said WuFei. The colony trio was interrupted, as Duo checked out Hilde, who was looking longingly at a two-person arcade game.

"Hilde, yantooplay '_MAN FROM HADES INTERSTATE MASS MURDER?_" The ex-OZ officer expressed mock-enrapture.

"Oh Duo, you mean it? Wow, (change of pace) I'll kick you butt!"

"Sure, go for it, I'm known only for winning losing battles, so don't expect much of a challenge," he invited.

"C'mon, I'll race you!" Hilde counter-invited.

"So, you want to make some quick money?" What do you think, Trowa? Yes, WuFei does.

"Why don't we just have fun, like those two?" 05 asked, nodding at the gaming duo (pun: couple).

"This would be fun; I've got an idea," Trowa answered, smiling like the fox. They shared the same smile for a moment.

"Tell me then, what do you have in mind?"

"Well," he began, "we collect a pot for prize money," WuFei, Trowa noticed, was getting anxious, so Trowa smiled as he continued.

"Then, we setup a booth. We will charge one dollar for every attempt." WuFei frowned.

"Attempt at what?"

"Attempt at making me laugh," the young clown explained. Chang groaned, he felt as if he had just seen the 'Peacecraft Queen' sink.

"You have got to be kidding," WuFei stated in disbelief.

"Not at all," 03 assured, "Cathy will win the prize money, and we'll all have a handsome sum." 05 caught on.

"Now I get it, your running a scam!" Trowa ordered WuFei not to raise his voice.

"Let's do it."

_**Same Day,  
Maxwell Country,  
Rural Colombia.**_

Dramatis Personae:

Zechs Marquise: Owner of Tallgeese, and is the greatest soldier in the Earth Sphere.

Lucrezia Noin: Zechs' partner.

Heero Yuy: Former Gundam pilot and heart of outer space.

Mordred Bartista: Czar of the drug cartel.

Heorot Manuela: Mordred's master snoop-hunter.

_**0600, Rural Columbia Morning**_

Burstcom: "Noin, thermo's showing a convoy. Looks like Mordred Bartista's trucks. They're not the government, or legit farmers." Noin watched carefully from her mobile-suit.

"You're right, I'm blazing." C-4 lit-up the road, dismembering four, ten, and eighteen-wheelers.

"Well done, Noin, now let's get 'em." She raised her Taurus to the treetops and beamed targeting data to the Tallgeese, who was lying within a duck blind.

Zechs diligently searched for the most dangerous threat of all.

"There he is." Zechs spotted Gemini, the pride of Bartista's mobile-suit fleet.

"Noin, drop below the road-ridge, Gem' is here," he warned his partner.

"Right away." Crouched on its stomach like an army-man sniper, Tallgeese fired the beam- cannon. Plasma-pulse engulfed the hybrid monstrosity, with little effect, as expected.

"Mercurius and Vayeate, this could be tough."

The Siamese-suit directed its heavy cannon in the direction of Zecks, still not sure where Merquise was.  
The Lightning Count didn't wait, however, lighting the vernier and accelerating in a head-on run at Gemini.  
The drug-money suit leveled the cannon, and earned a radar-lock noise. The detector in Tallgeese warned Zechs of the upcoming shot.  
Gemini fired, but Zechs swept to the side, advanced on the suit; an obvious echo of his first fight with Hero. He made a move for the beam- saber, but at the moment of impact, elected to perform a backward somersaulted, kicking Gemini into a nearby ravine.

"Noin, maybe it would be best to fall-back from this battle. Bypass them by flying southeast. I'll meet you on the other side," he firmly suggested, keeping his eyes peeled for threatening mobile-suits.

Ol' Gem moved his beam-saber-equipped shield from the shoulder to the left hand, and placed the cannon to his back, giving up on shooting Zechs.

"That's okay, give me your best shot." Zechs placed his own gun in a shoulder notch.

"This could take some time, and that would be a disaster."

**Maxwell House **

"Y'all come, y'all come, make the man laugh! Fifty-dollar prize! One dollar a try! Exchangeable for gold! Really fun! Really worth it!" Could WuFei make the sell?  
So far there have not been any challengers, but, some newcomer might have Trowa's number.

(Bathroom break)

"I'm about to turn a sure profit at my booth; I am the king of cons!" Trowa found the joy of deceiving people, and he felt as if he owned the world.

_**Columbia**_

The Lightning Count sailed at a slight to right slant toward the green goblin; Gemini. Saber held high, Zechs kept his mecha-hand close to the cannon's trigger.

"Once more, I must come on top!" Moment of impact II, Zechs succeeded in placing a pulse around Gem's left hand-shield... right to the face.  
Tallgeese danced inside, parrying a futile cat-slap, and punched Gem's retreating chin with his freehand Superman style.  
Gemini could no longer stumble- he just fell down. That didn't stop him from hitting the jets.

"Calling the mobile-suit Gemini, this is Zechs Merquise. I am declaring the end of this battle. If you wish to acknowledge a recess, just say so," the Count requested of the drug-lord's hand.  
The green suit, Zechs noticed, set down on a distant hill.

"Okay, this is Heorot Manuela. Why should I yield when I have the advantage?" The suit inquired insolently.  
Zechs decided to play Vega, and appeared on Gemini's screen, hoping Heo' would follow suit.

"Advantage? You mean your numerical superiority? Don't count on that, friend, I just want to give you a breather, so we can go another round," he smiled coolly, taking note of the mobile-suits encircling him.

'_Is he directing them himself_?' Zechs pondered, his gut saying '_yes_' the whole way.  
Heorot appeared on Zechs' screen, ready to continue dialogue.

"Sure, we can go another round sometime, but only if you can survive long enough," he accepted, then signed off.

"What the Devil does-" Zechs gasped, seeing white streams spraying in his direction.  
He pressed in the overdrive, a last-ditch effort to survive. He cleared the flood, eyeing the black Aries suit below.

"Now's my chance to kill him," Zechs said, glad to be alive, and also, glad he, the suit, and the verniers survived overdrive output. He powered up the beam-cannon, grasping it tightly, and earned a direct hit on the unsuspecting hybrid suit.

"Darn, he was able to deploy his shields," the Count said, seeing suit plop over in defeat.

"See you in round two, Vega, (laughter)!" He laughed, nursing Tallgeese to the rendezvous area.

"Nice try with the space-lasers, Heo' boy!"

_**Maxwell House**_

Homeboy1: "Yo-yo, entertaining this guy has wiped me out, man."

(The key here, is to think of potty humor)

Homeboy2: "Did you say wipe? Tubular, man!"

Homeboy1: "(Laughter) Stay off that, man, it's hard being Cool, Rich, And Popular."

(Acronym: CRAP)

Homeboy2: "Solid, man, who could handle a WAD of me, imagine a load!"

Homeboy1: "Did you say handle? Man, get jiggy with that quickly, headmaster, this has left me pooped!"

Homeboy 2: "Not to mention the chili dog, right?"  
WuFei was terribly dismayed.

"He's laughing, Trowa Barton is laughing at these guys. I've been wiped out." He pulled his gangsta bowler over is eyes, and departed in shame.

"Enzo, Max, thanks for your help, guys, here's your part of the deal," Trowa told the two scamming comedians. He handed them their money.

"It's a pleasure," the youth said, most likely sincere.

"Yes, it certainly was, I haven't had this much fun since the end of the war," the other man said.  
'_Strange_,' Trowa thought, '_one guy is large with a gruff voice, and the other has a youthful appearance, and a youthful voice. That always seems to happen_.' Trowa's eye lit up.

"Duo, I see that you've finished your game with Hilde, how did it go?" Maxwell looked down and said, "Oh, not so swell," now looking up, "I destroyed her." Trowa laughed again, and the two mobsters smile in response.

"Hey, you should see lounge-site, my private office space, Trowa. Feel free to bring your friends there, too," Duo waved, ushering Trowa along before he could protest the actual facts about his relationship with Enzo and Max.

_**Columbia**_

'_Destroyer of his own men_' made the trek to Heck: i.e., his camp, where Noin and the crew were waiting for him.

"How will the Chief take it, I wonder?"

"Lieutenant Zechs, I can tell by the flight data that your actions were the correct ones, and that you are truly the best soldier ever to step in a mobile-suit; but that's not going to repair the gun and the engines,"

Miser, Zechs' Crew Chief, lectured, peering at the diagnostic readout,

"Thankfully, the engines didn't meltdown. In fact, Tallgeese would run just fine at three-quarters output. The gun however, is beyond repair, the insides, anyway. You could use the rifle-cannon in the meantime, and I can have the engines running at speed at dusk tomorrow."

"The cannon will be fine, Miser, but I'm going to need the engine power- one day it is." Zechs took a step away from the crew-cut mechanic, then stopped, deciding to bring one more thing to the Chief's attention.

"One more thing, I've got to follow a lead I've discovered and I'll have to go out for awhile. Tell Noin I might be out until late... where is she, anyway?"  
The head grease monkey considered.

"Some experiment with the demolitions. I 'magine, she thinks someone tampered with the ones y'all set in th' jungle."

The count's eyebrows rose.

"Huh, tampered with? I saw the convoy's destruction- why would she think that anything is wrong?" Miser couldn't give a clear answer.

"Thanks anyway, and double thanks for your work on the Tallgeese. Not even Howard is this fast with it, and he created this beast. I'll return before midnight."  
Zechs saluted, then walked out of the portable hanger.

"Don't be late, Zechs, we need you to pilot this monster," Miser whispered, not really trying to be heard. "Take care."

_**Mogadishu**_

Fountains, stuffed birds of prey, and DeathScythe waist deep in water; these were the unique parts about Duo's office: the rest looking like a nineteenth century men's club-room, sort of like the men's clubroom featured on 'Home Improvement,' or an Atlantic City casino.

"Quite a pad, huh Trowa?" Duo looked past his friend in pride.

"Strangely, it's as if I'm reunited with my tribe," said Trowa, in silent wonder.

"That's the idea, now we are men among our natural habitat," Duo bragged, in '_proud space explorer_' tone.

"So you want to hear a little secret?" Duo asked rapidly. Trowa shrugged.

"Shoot." 02 pointed at Trowa's two 'friends.'

"Those two guys are going to help me in a secret mission." Trowa blinked, barely betraying surprise.

"Pardon?"

Duo: "(Sigh) Enzo, Max, illustrate."

The little one named Max pulled off his hat, and peeled dry paint from his face. Enzo retrieved a wet towel for his friend, and Max rubbed vigorously.

Max: "And out from the drought-pudding comes the epic-inspiring Quatre!"

Sure enough, under the cosmetic cake layer, stood Quetre Reberba- Winner, famed former pilot of Gundam 04.  
Duo stepped forward, in Trowa's direction.

"I need your help, buddy."

_**Columbia**_

C-4 lit up the road, dismembering four, ten, and eighteen-wheelers at a smaller scale than before.

"It agrees with the computer sims, ma'am, someone tampered with the demolitions," gray-haired and mustached Assistant Chief Chim concluded.  
Noin only smiled knowingly, having solved the case... practically.

"Thanks for your help, Chim. I think I can handle everything from here," she excused herself.

"Could you tell the junior mechanics to taxi the 'distance flight configured' Taurus onto the runway? I'm going to take it out for awhile."

_**Senor Bubba's BBQ, Bogota, Columbia**_

"Buenos Noches, mi yammo Zecks Merquise. Llego por El Grandee Heorot, El en?"

"Si, Senor, El Grandee es en," the doorman answered. He pulled the door open.

"Gracias," the Count thanked, tipping the doorman.

"Sawdust floors, what a shabby joint," he said to 'nada' as he walked down a western hall.  
Neon beer signs clashed with antiques all the way down.

"Deadly row, like the green mile," he snickered.  
The wood shavings were brittle, and created a spur like sound with every footfall. At last, he reached the counter.

"Of how can I serve," an obese Latin woman asked, standing behind the counter.  
"Bottled coca cola, curly fries, and two roast beef sandwiches," Zechs ordered, avoiding water-ice.

"Si Senor, ponse alli, por favor," she requested. Zechs found a table, and waited for his order.

"This room is quite cheery, in a rugged way," he noted the load atmosphere, "still, it's not a dance club, I might find Heorot."

Zechs had decided that Heorot Manuela would frequent this bar, after reading the OZ MP records on the former soldier.  
This bar suited his taste, or rather, the select haunting places of his crowd. Heorot is a hard adventure-lover, who had formerly worked with the 33rd Independent in Somalia, but split with Alex and Mueller sometime before the assault on the Noventa Cannon. In area of raw talent, he was Noin's number one student, but he was "impossible," or so Noin's scribbled notes say. You know what the rogue is doing these days.  
Zechs spied a glass door with closed blinds.

"Of course, a closed fiesta," he triumphantly mouthed, certain he had found Heo'.

"Hola, Senor Guapo, tu hamburgasas y papas eres terminitos," a teen waitress delivered the roast beef and fries to Zechs.

"Gracias, muchacha," he thanked, not realizing he had offended her.

"Cerdo!" She assaulted, storming away.

"Silly girl," he laughed, paying her little mind.

"Heorot, may Christopher protect you as long as you're in Colombia, because I'll show you no mercy."

_**Maxwell House**_

"The Noventa cannon?" Trowa asked, surprised by Duo.

"Yep, about a month ago, Sylvia asked me to go up there with her, and explore the possibility of building a monument there. But when we went up there, we saw a construction crew rebuilding the facilities. We barely escaped with our lives, and have been planning an assault ever since," Due explained.

"So, today is just one big ruse?" Trowa asked, still surprised.

"All the nonsense with you, Quatre, WuFei, and Rashid, yes," Duo affirmed.

"A monument for the Field Marshal, I guess," Trowa speaking.

"Yep, and by the way, WuFei's a part of the plan, too, and not an unwitting part, either."  
Trowa focused his eyes on Duo, hoping no important fact has escaped him.

"How much have you investigated?" Duo seemed to have rehearsed this.

"Seems to be a group of discontents, nothing more, but the cannon has the Preventers worried, as you would expect. However, Aerial surveillance has been useless, (sigh) something that has me worried. Stealthy means professional. Only their unwillingness to use active sensors allowed Silvia and me to get close."  
Despite the dangers, Trowa had confidence in Duo, who was obviously topnotch.

"So Trowa, you ready to conquer this thing or what?"

"Can't wait," he enthused but didn't (you know).

"Ok, Enzo and Max need to go, before hypothetical spies start getting suspicious," Duo instructed. Both: "Right."  
Duo walked to a lion statue, and ran a magnetic card trough it.

"Ok, Trowa, you go through this passage, as I 'check on the turkey,' Maxwell instructed, as a secret door opened mechanically.

"Take care, I'll be with you in a second."

_**Canal Defense Base, North of Panama City, Panama.**_

"Pagan, has Relena sent any agents on a fact-finding mission in Columbia? This is important," Noin asked the old man over the web.  
Pagan's brows ruffled.

"Are you there? In Columbia, I mean," he asked, stalling.

"No, Pagan, I'm in Panama, I just need to know," and she expressed little patience.

"I'll tell you, since Relena needs all the allies she can get: she has appointed the Gundam pilot Heero Yuy," he gave in.

"Hot blast! I was right! Thanks Pagan, and take care of yourself," Noin signed off, jubilated.

"Who else would have, and could have, repositioned the explosives so that they'd only destroy the vehicles, darned kid. What could he be doing out here?"

_**Bubba's BBQ**_

In little over one second, Zechs had jimmied open the lock with his tungsten-steel rapier... and walked into a WILD beer-bash, typical of Heorot Manuela.

'_I'm expecting the maximum, as you always told me to_,' Walker's words echoed through the count's skull as he saw all of the drunken soldiers.

"Heorot, this is the spirit of Zechs Marques. I have come to claim your soul!"  
"Well ain't that so? (Hiccup) I like it where it is, and you ain't touchin' it," he drunkenly pulled his sidearm, which was waving before him.

"Y' think y' can fool me when I's drunk? Shoot, you no ghost, you just too dang fast; I know all about your overdrive trick. Besides, you shoot me wit a beam-cannon right AFTA wood. You think I'm a dummy? Huh?"  
The Count held his hands on his waist, and his head high.

"Excuse me, I guess I'm my only fan here, but if you ask me, I'm not to worried about that."  
Manuela felt he had the upper hand.

"Fan my butt-"the former hero cutoff his opponent.

"That's right, I brought my sword here exclusively for that purpose." This angered the drunkard.

"Why you brave ! Use the lead, guys!" The liberator tossed a smoke grenade from his waist in an underhand fashion.

"Just shoot, guys!" Zechs rolled backward and out the door as drunken and smoke-obscured shots followed.

"I'm glad that juice slows reflexes!" Zechs yelled, speeding along.  
He popped upright, pulling a Champaign bottle off a shelf, before flopping once more. With bubbly in hand, he pulled an ice pick free from his belt, with the freehand, a small plasma torch. An odd sight: the Lightning Count squirmed free of the room, keeping his thrower pointed into the room at all times.  
At last, some thugs rotated before the door, suspecting strongly that the Count still lived.

Cork: "Pop!"

A dark-orange firestorm broiled the insurgent gunman berserkers; giving them dancing flame halos!  
Zechs pivoted to fill the rest of the room. Dis-Fantasia spread rapidly. Shooting would have been an anti-climax to the inferno-jet, therefore Zechs hopped, slammed in the door, and started welding.

"I've had it with this," he muttered, impatient with his soldering. He pulled a small vial from his red coat, and placed the liquid hydrogen contents along the melted door.

"That's that," he concluded, smiling at his handwork. Banshee-screams raved behind the discharged soldier, who was oblivious to it all.

"Do tink I's a quitter, Hex? You no good, buds I's not drowned yet! I'll get you, just wait!"  
Someone, most likely Heorot, rapidly holed the shatterproof door, unable to pass through it.

"Umph, (laugh)(laugh) he's too flustered to beat out of there. Go ahead, keep trying," Zechs privately mocked his enemy, feeling free to do so.

"Come now, you must have taken me for a fool if you thought I didn't have a ridiculous plan at the very least," he carried along, placing a wad of...money on the BBQ's counter.

"These guys never seem to grow up."

_**Maxwell House**_

I brought the smiles back, just as I promised," Duo stood in his very own superhero pose, smile included, as he watched the festivities, just before he "checked the turkey." From a distance, Hilda spotted him.

"Duo!" She huffed as she ran, "Where's Trowa?" She asked as she noticed his absence.

"He's hanging around my office. Why don't you give him company as I...check on the turkey?" The hostess blinked, registering just what was happening.

"Right, he's a social creature- I'd better get there before he cracks," she said a little too warmly. Exit Hilde.

"I wonder how the Cajun seasoning will go over," Duo shrugged as he moved along.

"Now this is child's play," Duo self-criticized, as he climbed into the kitchen dumb-waiter. (Duo thinks the name fits.)

"I'm coming down to y', DeathScythe honey!" He whooped on his descent into a dark basement, which he promptly lit up Clap-clap!  
He spotted Trowa and Hilde, who found their way there. (They had turned on small lamps that Duo didn't notice somehow.)

"This is going too well," Duo complained, suddenly suspicious of the whole thing.

"Don't worry about it, Duo, I agree that this is too easy, but I don't think this so-called mission is a trap; you don't hide traps," Trowa assured his friend with cold logic.

"Yeah, you're right, but I think this is just a part of something bigger," Duo resisted, looking at his own feet.  
Trowa continued gearing up without missing a beet.

"I agree with you there, this is just one cog in the machine." A few grunts versus the Noventa Cannon: think "Charge of the Light Brigade" at Goliath scale.

_**Inside Bubba's**_

"It's not my Lincoln fault, Mr. Mordred, you know Ima not 'sponcible when I'm off th' job," 'Poor Little Heorot' self-excused over the net, just after the raid.

"Well, we're just going to have to change tactics now, are we not?" The dark-haired Spaniard considered.

"What do you have in mind?" The castle era looking boss had an idea.

"Come crash at my place, would you? I need you to stay out of trouble, you're pathetic," the Arthurian named man scolded.  
Manuela seemed to be coming out of his stupor.

"You're right, Mordy, we can't get into this type of trouble right now. I'll stay at your place and stay out of trouble."  
Exeunt.

_**Later, Outside Bubba's.**_

The Count waited, and was rewarded for his uncommon virtue. He spotted the Grandee, with other goons in tow, hobbling to an old German van.

"Be the ignorant soldier I know you to be, and take me too you leader," Zechs whispered while lowering his spy-monocular, being uncommonly cocky at the moment.  
The van pulled out, most likely guided by an intoxicated motorist.

"Lead the way." He started up his own olive-brown motorbike, and pursued the van down a dusty trail.

_**Shore of Somalia**_

At last, the Gundam assault team stalled their breakneck charge, pulling their super-bikes to a collective stop.  
Quatre and Rashid were waiting.

"The rocket guns and the decoy-dolls are a go," Quatre yelled, waving the team in.  
(Moments pass)

"I don't like this," said Trowa, motioning toward the guns, "it will rain on our heads." Quatre frowned.

"Don't you mean, where's WuFei?" Trowa actually answered.

"He's on the island, picking apart the security net." Duo and Hilde laughed hysterically.

"You seem to be out of the whole humanity loop," Hilde commented.

"Maybe so, but you need me for this assault," 03 bragged, knowing he must have some value if they worked so hard to get him there.

"Now what about the guns?" Trowa pressed.

"The first wave of rockets will hit pre designated targets, and after that, we'll have continuous fire-support falling in areas we aren't residing," Q. Winner explained away.

T: "Who'll be manning it?" (The gun)

Q: "Rashid."

T: "What's my role?"

D: "I'll explain in the boat."

T: "What boat?"

H: "One of our rafts."  
Trowa nodded, everyone could explain the mission in rapid fire discussion; all was squire.  
One more question.

"How'd you get a rocket-gun out here?"

R: "We brought it." Whatever.

_**Columbia**_

"Now I'm sure the only soldier better than me has retired, as well as the others," Zechs was discussing with himself as he rode an old OZ bike into his camp early Thanksgiving morning, with Heero, Heo', and not Heero Gundam pilots in mind.

"At least I'm back before dark," he noticed the time. "I'm sure they're not too worried."  
He wasn't thinking about Mordred's men.

_**On the (wet) road to Noventa**_

The water was choppy STOP  
Like a drowsy bull STOP

Duo was in a rubber raft along with Trowa, who didn't understand him, and Quatre was in another boat with Hilde, another member of the team. (Rashid was manning the gun.)  
The water was monotonous, beating the boats one tide-like wave at a time, in the same rhythm as 'Three Blind Mice.'

"Fight with this theme, flow with this tune, be possessed by this spirit, you plan for me is to act on a certain feeling?"

Trowa wondered if Quatre came up with all this '_caca_.'  
Duo tried to dismiss it.

"In a way we are actors, Trowa, we didn't know exactly what we were doing during the war, right? Likewise, we can only use our motivation as a key until WuFei gives us the answer, you got that?"  
Duo was close enough to a bull's eye, Trowa decided, that he didn't argue the point.

"Yeah, until WuFei clears the fog that's all I can do."  
They both hoped WuFei would top Prometheus.

"You think Trowa swallowed it?" Hilda speaking.

"Yes, I really think he _BELIEVED_ it, Hilde, I know Trowa, and I also know I've just won forty dollars," Quatre said, full of pre-battle bravado. (He's partially role-playing.)

"You may know him, Quatre, but he's not a crazy mystic like you are," Hilda countered, being herself.

Quatre held back from saying "oh yeah?" and shut up for the duration of the trip.

_**Maxwell House**_

A manager and a circus veteran walked into a secret men's club, and the image of a young man arose from light.

"This is the holographic Duo Maxwell, I have just stepped out to demolish the Noventa Cannon. I am guessing this is Catherine, actually I know it is. You walked through my scanner, see, and I just left a message so that anyone asking about my assault force wouldn't be left in the dark. See you when I get back!"

The Duo image waved smartly, and blinked out. A bubble of anger boiled to Cathy's surface, before submerging back down.  
Manager laughed.

"(Laugh) what do you know, he left when he was off duty for once! Ha- ha-ha! Cathy turned on him.

"Manager, please-" Two large top-heavy sunglasses-wearing men stormed lounge-site, pointing bulky handguns somewhere, and shouting.

"Spread you're hands! Etc! The manager's knees buckled.

Could Cathy keep her cool this time?

_**In the Dining/Guest area**_

These people, a young lady named Dorothy, and an older man, Howard, were fine characters, but Count Townsend, mustached World Leader, had expected to meet Quatre, who he had first met at the start of Operation Nova.  
Howard, who had been spending time at a health resort in Yalta, was telling "one of his stories."

"...The Alliance MPs were right on our tells, so I said, "Hey, a graveyard..." Beep-beep-beep!  
_Pager, the perfect distraction!_ Townsend promptly pulled it to his eyes. TROUBLE IN DUO'S ROOM, DO SOMETHING.  
-Sally Poe.

"Pardon my abruptness, Howard," Townsend excused himself, rushing across the guest area.

"I only have an air-taser," he huffed under his breath, now jogging.  
He pulled it out, moving sown the hall, preparing for the unknown.  
The import-export portal, or door, was right ahead. A firecracker!  
He forgot about the heck-stone he had bought from a Somali kid earlier that day.  
He briefly fumbled for it before making the pull. Lit and tossed, it was followed by the mustached Count.

"(Duo-like yell)" At top speed, he bounced off the door hinges, placing two taser-shots into the two guys that look like bodyguards, who tried in vain to pivot around on their knees, but only made it to three o'clock. Zip-zip!

Town moved in rapidly for hand-to-hand, dropping his taser. He bowled them over, giving the left guy a staggering chop on the neck.  
Following this action, he found himself on his knee and kicked the guy on the right side. The other man and the woman in the room set to work stomping on the men's hands.

"Mission complete," he (Townie) applauded, "Thanks a lot guys," he thanked the two. They constantly said, "no, thank you," as he placed binds on the prisoners.  
He asked them if Major Sally had been there.

"No, mister, only these two, and a hologram of Duo." He inquired behind his back. He asked more.

"He said they're invading the Noventa Cannon."  
The Count asked who "they" were.

'_And Major Sally_,' Townsend expected.

"Okay."

_**On The Island**_

The team didn't have much beach to land on, just a shelf really. Trowa had a question, admiring this mega-crag.

"Have you been training for this?" Quatre answered.

"For a month now; you're the odd man out.  
Trowa agreed that he was.

"Then forgive me if I lag behind," he added. The conversation abruptly ended, as Quatre, then Trowa, followed Hilde's gaze. They, along with Duo, followed the descent of a slender and sweat-soaked climber.  
WuFei Chang enters.  
He smiled fiendishly at Trowa as they all moved toward each other.

"You have a lot of guts approving me after that scam you pulled in Mogadishu," burned 05, glaring down at Barton like Lando on Bespin. Trowa evaded the subject, asking, "The security is safe-guarded with no-shows, right?"  
WuFei lifted his chin.

"The Moguanacs beefed-up the White Fang's '_White Blindness_' program; I used that."  
Duo firmly placed his hands together and asked about the recon for the operation.

"Right," Chang droned, pointing to the concealable holographic projector at a stone that was being shadowed by the island peak. The image crackled on, phasing into something that made sense. Not right away, because a few scenes from a Magic Wrestling Organization (MWO) brawl had been recorded.  
Duo's jaw dropped.

"(Sigh) man, spare me, WuFei," he groaned, wishing to move past the show.

"Ok." 05 thumbed a button, and a photographic image of the peak appeared. (Horizontal view.)

"As you can see," the Preventer lectured, pointing his sword at the image, "This looks largely the same as it did early in the year colony 195, however, the cannon is now completely covered by this Indian-red camouflage net. The gun IS there," WuFei paused to glare at Trowa, who was about to object.

"Because Duo and Sylvia Noventa brought back reports, saying they saw the gun from below the net, before skirts had been added."  
Trowa shuddered at how much like Lady Une WuFei sounded.  
The image changed, becoming more psychedelic.

"This is a false-color image. Everything not recorded in the Zechs Merquise report is a bright red-orange. Now we can see that more has changed than we had originally thought." An overhead view appeared.

"This is an infrared image taken by MO-2. Very little man-made heat is visible." The team was getting frustrated but still quite, which is a positive sign.  
An animated motion picture of the ascent route caught their eyes.

"This is the route I have chosen for us." A one-by-thirteen hundred still observation photo revealed another perspective of the rock.

"We will climb in a column." A red line then covered the exact trail.

"I'll take point," WuFei added. Big surprise, that's how everyone expected it. He stabbed a cord into the projector, and continued.

"This is the security network closed-circuit images I downloaded earlier," he stated, as the pictures phased in.

"Watch carefully." A visual symphony of system-sight played for a long moment, with the team trying to comprehend.

"Once we reach the summit, I'll signal the laptop to beam the data to the Alliance supercomputer in Luxembourg, where techs will process the data, put it in Questworld, and transmit the data to Rashid, who should have an easy job of designating targets.  
Hopefully, the audio-visual data will be enough knowledge for this to happen." The team understood; WuFei wasn't sure that he had found anything: this can happen when one collects tons of electronic intelligence with no time to process.

'_People degenerate when they rely on machines_,' and WuFei was clueless.

"Okay, for now there's nothing more to tell," he shouted, "it's time to climb!"

WuFei's taking point wasn't slowing the team at all, although he'd been trekking all day, and Trowa was hanging directly behind him, only because he didn't know the way so well, did he stay in the two spot.

"You know, once we're on the verge of capturing this complex, these guys are going to scuttle the greater sum of the knowledge we could use concerning their activities. I just wish we could have probed everything beforehand," Trowa confided with the group, unhindered in speech, even when climbing an expert slope.  
Duo peddled closer to the clown.

"I know what you're saying, buddy-boy, but the ultimate terrorist tool is up there; w-we can't go for the trophy when we're lagging behind in the poles! We gotta shoot for the run we _can_ nab, the cup can wait," eloquently argued the God of Death.

"You're right again, Duo," Trowa replied sincerely, "Debate class has a rising star."  
The team reached a plateau, and waited for WuFei to do something, his back reclined to better help him admire heaven.

"It is regrettable," he addressed his men, checking out every one of the others, "I would like to see everything. I guess I'm like Lieutenant Trent that way, but we're not meant to have everything."  
He reached into his sack, and freed a familiar tool, the grapnel.

"But, we haven't been left in poverty," he smiled at the others, who all caught on, save Quatre.

"'Left in poverty' means 'abandoned without money,' Quatre," Hilde explained, masking annoyance, barely. The three poor guys laughed heartedly, but an obligation to the mission forced WuFei to cut it short.

"(Laugh)(laugh) O-okay, let's cut this trip short with these," WuFei ordered in warm nature, displaying the special gun.

"This sucker has a rocket motor meant for use by lifeguards, and can reach a height of over 1000 feet, so aim high!"

_**Situations Room,  
Deep within the Noventa Cannon Complex**_

Commodore Chester Morris puffed his pipe, as was customary for him whenever a real situation jumped before him.

"Sir, we have a straight-wing fighter sailing at thirty-five klicks out-" Norris interrupted the Executive Officer.

"Deploy the Aires Zulu flight, Polk, that fighter's carrying standoff missiles," he told the X-O, Polk Browning.

"Aye-aye," Zulus (alarms buzz) all pilots to their suits, I repeat..." Chester was certain this was a trick, yet he had no clue as to the nature of it.  
He couldn't hold his trump much longer, for the game could end soon.

Outside

On the ridge WuFei watched a hidden hanger drop its jaw.

"Here's you task, Trowa," the leader said evenly, never turning from the maw. The young clown crouched forward, into a kneeling position, as the others prepared to run. Out came an iron beetle, an Aries mobile-suit, and a large black insect oblivious to oblivion. Trowa hammered it with his gatling.  
The seven-barreled cylinder slowly rotated, waning in speed, symbolizing a false eternity for a moment, before spinning thrice more, barfing gundanium shells through more mobile-suits. He re-strapped the gun beside his other burdens, before working to catch the others, who braved the tumbling titanium mecha.

_Inside_

This is the most easily defended place on Earth, and yet, that's what makes it easy to conquer.

"So, that's what they had planned, cunning," Norris thought, after seeing that the flight-suits never appeared in the air-surveillance network.

"Close the hanger door, I want a security detail in their last week!" He raised his voice, and slammed his fist, even though he was looking forward to the battle.  
This was going to be good.

Clack! Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-dive! Trowa Barton beat the hanger door by a pico-second, very nearly losing his valuable self to the door!  
He rolled to his feet, performing all the tricks to adjust his eyes to the florescent lighting.

"Hey buddy, all right?" He recognized the voice as Duo's.

"Yes, Duo, I'm just fine." Duo blinked, searching for a special meaning in Trowa's words, but it was 03's turn to laugh. Now Duo understands that the clown was jerking him around.  
The others laughed too, save WuFei, who interrupted by taking potshots at security officers.  
It was a small bay, meant to hold only the Zulu flight crew, craft, and tools. This meant the security team's fire was very concentrated.  
So was the fire of Trowa Barton's gatling.  
The rotary-shower forced the guards back to the hall in which they came.

"Good shooting," WuFei patted Trowa on the back, moving for the hall, along with Duo.  
Quatre shuffled with the sacks WuFei and Duo had put down. He bared two miniaturized mobile-suit guns, and something that looked like a large canteen on a tripod.

"This'll give us a backdoor," he said, not really explaining much.  
He decided to show Trowa instead. The Norse-looking lad sprayed his laser-cannon across much of the door, even as the heat buildup scorched his hands.  
He pushed the tool to the brink, getting the best cut, (the rich kid always gets the best cut) before tossing it aside and replacing it with the beam-cannon. It had the effect of a mace, pushing the door completely free.

"(Boyish grunt) this barrel atop the tripod is actually an old 30 caliber Browning machine gun. It will keep 'soldiers' from entering the hanger, at least," the boy explained away the gadget.  
The circus boy said nothing, reading the rest by himself.

'_Rashid will takeout the heavy hardware for us, hopefully, and the gun is for troops, he deduced. In a nutshell, that was the plan._

_**Within the depths of the Alliance Supercomputer,  
Luxemburg City**_

"(Grinding grunt-whine)" The raw data smashed into the mainframe, waiting indefinitely for something to make sense of it all. A dark-specs wearing Arab named Abdul was the human working in VR for a solution.  
He placed all the materials in their correct positions, at least he thought, before any traditional silicon soul could grasp the task.

"Remember, all the topographic data can be handled by the machine, you put the man-made interior together," a mustached old man's voice told him, sounding ghostly in this cyber-world.

Data-streams soared in like comet tails in hyperspace, a hard task for an old Maguanac soldier, but his skills proved sufficient for this difficult job.  
Rapidly the integrated structure took shape, and the security images formed a whole picture. Abdul put his fingers to his jawbone.

"I copy," Pagan relied, manipulating keys in his own world, "I guess it's time for electronic theft," the Arab sighed. His job was done.

"I've cleaned up here, pull me out, Pagan," he shouted again.

"I'm on it." The old Maguanac accelerated through a green-white tunnel for a brief instant in time, before gathering all of himself in a recliner.

"I've sent our message, and I'm pressing the button," said Pagan, as Abdul lifted himself free of the chair.

Today, 'pressing the button' means 'directing the mainframe's attention to autonomous system entrances,' at least, that's what these two had agreed on one month before.

**_Between lines_**

"Master Quatre, I have received word from Luxemburg, time for me to fire in anger," Rashid contacted the strike-team, warning of his eminent gunfire.

"Thanks, Rashid, I'm absorbing the target list," Raberba-Winner replied, appearing to shake something, or so it looked on Rashid's display.

'He's positioning the Browning.'

R: "Warn the others, over."

Quatre signed off too, eager to shout at the others.

"Hum, short target list, I've got some to spare for the cannon itself," he grumbled, stroking his unshaved chin.

"Gotta get used to this," he rubbed some more.

**_Main Leo Hanger,_**

_**Off the Coast of Somalia**_

"This is Polk Browning, our inter-netted defenses are under attack. All Tragos suits, deploy to the west side of the island. You will receive further instructions from there."

The PA system beamed this startling message to Colonel Kale Sandstone, leader of the 1st Recon Tragos Battalion.

"Peachy," he droned, as he ascended his "pleasure craft."

_**Inside Zulu Hanger**_

The duo of Duo and WuFei returned from the hall.

Duo put away his beam-scythe, and WuFei fastened away his Katana.

Both have soaked their uniforms from "doing the Jedi thing" in the hall.

(They were in Peacemillion assault dress.)

"Rashid is fighting, guys. Let's use the box formation," Quatre spoke up.

The plan was for Trowa and his gatling to take point, WuFei to assist and command, Quatre to navigate and communicate (giving him the real power), Hilda to cover the rear, and Duo to relieve whoever.

**_Situations Room,_**

_**Within the island**_

Commodore Chester Norris steeples his tobacco-stained hand together, as he excitedly watched the bulk of his world fall apart.

"Officer Browning, what's the status of the Noventa Cannon gunning station?"

Polk had known Commodore Norris for a great deal of time, yet was doubtful about the Captain's intentions.

"Well, Sir, there are auxiliary and manual systems that are in perfect order," he calmly replied, as surrounding hordes of techs battled some task or other in direct contrast to his calm.

"Good," said Norris, "you have the bridge, XO."

To everyone's complete surprise, the Commodore nonchalantly trotted away from the carnage.

Norris addressed the Chief of the Boat. "COB, take my launch key. Subordinate the XO, he has the con."

COB agreed.

"Aye Sir, XO has the con.

Word spread through the ranks.

"XO has the con."

"XO has the con."

"Affirmative, XO has the con."

The Xo watched in disbelief as the Captain left with a security detail to one of the exits.

"Sir, you have the con."

"Right, carry on."


	2. Working in a Narcotic State

Dear readers: I'm new to submitting text documents to this site, so please forgive me if the look of my first chapter is unprofessional. Future chapters will be smaller if reader interest picks up, because I'll then what to submit regularly to equal demand. Your reviews do count, so please offer some input.

Typewriter King, March 31, 2004

Dramatist note: As I'm sure you know, I don't own the Gundam Universe or any of the Gundam trademarks. This is a nonprofit venture written for the pleasure of Gundam Wing fans that probably own most of the official Gundam Merchandise, but still want more out of the Earth Sphere. I SHARE this text in the hope that it is in compliance with all the regulations placed on fan fiction.

_**Chapter Two: Working in a Narcotic State**_

_**Camp Prevention (Zechs' Camp), Columbia**_

Camp Prevention is located between Kali and Bogota, in a clearing owned and protected by the Cuaca Valley Authority (CVA). The CVA is now the closest thing the Columbians have to a strong government, and the police have overwhelmingly joined them when the government seat moved to Kali, now spelled with a K since the language was restructured. The nation is still called the Republica de Columbia, but anyone keeping score knows Bartista's group in the real capitol rules the majority of the state, and it's mostly thanks to that Gemini suit.

The road from Kali to Prevention is only a narrow two-lane artery, but the Authority put its back into this one, using cheap yet relatively generous Andean Indian labor to fit finely cut stone into a classically constructed road that should last a millennia or two, much like some of the Roman and Inca roads of past golden eras.

That reveals some good and bad news, Zechs thought, as he watched Noin and Chim drive in from the northwest. The good news should be obvious, and the bad news should be ominous. Zechs sees little reason why the road should fall apart over the next two thousand years, but he also notes that the Authority rushed road production during the pause in La Violencia between Earth's surrender to Space in 195, and the renewal of hostilities in the December of the following year.

'_Best to finish it while they had a chance, because at the rate of modern life, they may not have another chance to pave a road without the risk of ambush_,' he thought dejectedly. _'Have circumstances ruled me the same way?'_

"Hey there! I found a Bartista villa worth raiding, and you'll never guess who the inhabitant is!" He flagged down the Alliance/Oz open-air jeep, knowing the riders could hear him. Heck of a thing about that road, the famous Columbian noise and dust is absent from it.

"Manuela, right? Miser enlightened me on that, and some maverick stunt at a western bar. I've never known you as an extreme jock, and I knew you at a very young age." Noin's phobic friendship predates their academy years, though one can hardly tell, as distant the Lightning Count can be.

"You're mistaken, Noin. This is the panache Treize admired so much, and precisely what Colonel Une loathed so much. Remember, I was the icon of Oz for a good reason."  
Despite a righteous desire to reprimand, Noin smirked.

"Who could forget the dashing days of the Lightning Baron? Okay, consider yourself off the hook, Daredevil."

Zechs belatedly returned the smile, and told her he'd walk the jeep to the carport, a turn-of-phrase that lightly amused the motorists.  
Hmm, Noin seemed just as psyched about something, as if she too had discovered a secret slow in leaking. Zechs wrote a mental memo to talk about it on the way upcountry to Bogota, buy first comes packing, very important.

"What was it Miser was telling me? Oh yeah, she must have discovered who sabotaged the demolitions, and judging by her temperament, the cause must be fairly benign." To the Count's judgment, Noin would only welcome interference from a select group of individuals.

"And I can place four of them on the other side of the world today." The thought earned a long-neglected grin.


	3. Turkey Shoot or Duel?

_**Various Places in Somalia**_

The decoy dolls belonging to the Maguanac Corp are little more than wood and plaster Aries piñatas with JATO rockets for propulsion and secondhand radios to give the illusion of an avionic systems presence to electronic sniffs. Abdul and the guys added steering mechanisms and other nickel-and-dime doodads to the mix, but for Rashid's purposes, a kite on a pogo stick might have sufficed.

With no fanfare, he catapults a few on some aluminum rails set atop his artillery piece, and poaches for the slightest potshot.

A frozen orange rope roughly tags the lead doll, looks like said rope is 100mm in diameter. That's a target. He reads his fire-finder, a passive unit that measures signals from the local communication towers as his radar. A smart piece of electronics, Rashid's sensor exploits the well- known phenomenon of electromagnetic waves altering to the presence of solid objects. He pinpoints the unaccounted for signal-return, satisfied he has the location of a target, probably a Leo. Shoot-downs of more decoy dolls concur with his conviction.

Rashid announces this conclusion by shooting two fuel-air explosive rockets over the island to that point.

* * *

Funny thing about the warrior spirit, it never views a turkey shoot as unnatural until a lull in the battle lets the warrior reflect. Why should the warrior doubt himself? The fates selected _HIM_ to fight enemies that _HIS_ leader decided should die. That selection means _HE_ is within the righteous community of warriors chosen to prove _HIS_ way of life is the one made of the right stuff. If opponents just fall out of the sky dead, then it only proves what the fraternity of warriors has said all along. Of course, we brothers in arms can be the only ones that know this secret, because our wives and mothers can never understand that these living among them can perform these feats-of-arms, because the world is supposed to be too _SAFE_ to need such greatness at the warrior's trade.

At the will of this warrior spirit, Kale Sandstone killed one Aries after another, just like in his realistic training sessions. The rules of inertia pulled all these mobile-suits into his field of fire before the pilots could change bearing, and adrenaline, all warriors understood adrenaline, tried to fool Kale into believing a lot of time is actually passing.

He must already be an ace! He guns another one until an explosion satisfies him that it's dead.

Concussion tumbles him from the pedestal of the righteous warrior. His position in the pantheon of right stuff warrior is replaced by a pink slip from Mars, Ares, whoever decides what fighter is supposed to be deified, and only the trade of the vanquished remains.

But the benevolent will allows him a ladder back up the pedestal; his nameless enemies cunning takes full aim, as it happens, on the highly shielded left arm, precisely on the shoulder socket where the arm interlocks with the shield. Fate holds out, the suits breadbasket cockpit takes a firm concussive tsunami, but the furious rancor is reserved for that left arm and shield, now just slag and cinders.


	4. Complex Warfare

I owe Tom Wolfe some credit for his pioneering work crafting the concept of "the right stuff" for consumption for readers. I strongly recommend adult readers interested in chapter three to read Wolfe's book, "The Right Stuff," and parents should search for a _Reader's Digest_ version of the book for their kids. Also, I'd like to give credit to Viscount Lancer for helping me edit the first two chapters.

I don't own the Gundam Universe; I'm just lent a little slice of it. The concept of the right stuff doesn't belong to anyone, even Tom Wolfe, that honor goes to fighter jocks, especially those at the top of the pyramid. I named Kale after a leafy vegetable. Mogadishu, Bogota, Luxembourg City, and Cali are all real places, and the CVA really is the Columbian equivalent of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Any resemblance between my drug war and someone else's events, real or fiction, is purely coincidental. Rashid's duel with Kale is loosely based on opening events in the 1982 war between Israel and Syria. Needless to say, mobile-suits saw no action in that war.

_**Complex warfare**_

The effect of a gatling barrage to the human body are unspeakable (at least for a PG-rated audience), but luckily, after the second corner, Trowa met a net total of zero shooters around the third turn. WuFei tapped Trowa's shoulder.

"Abdul's feed is coming in," he updated, adding, "our back is secure, the cubicles are ahead. Follow me. Unchecked by marauders, the team broke into a sprint to WuFei's op point adjacent to a defended stairwell.

"I'll set this limpet mine to this wall, and once it blows, Trowa, I want you to hose the rubble," WuFei made it so. Despite the wreckage, the team confidently scaled the remaining twisted metal rails still held in place, though the team could only handle pistols and climb at the same time. Trowa covered the ascent.

"Come up, Trowa, I'll cover you," said Hilde, resting an Oz SMG butt against her shoulder. "Thanks, I'm coming up." As the complex's closed-circuited cameras indicated, the climb was uneventful.

"Here's what's happening, we're approaching a really perilous entrance wall to the Situations Room, and soldiers are holding out in the rooms ahead. We'll need to do a really risky leapfrog maneuver on this one. Duo, I want you to make the opening shot, blowing open the armored Situations Room door with that heavy LAW rocket. It's not tricky, since the door is a straight line from the middle of the hall, and only five doors down. Trowa, when Duo's finished, you're supposed to rake fire across every rock and niche over there. I'll crawl to the first room, and set a small charge to the door. Once that happens, Quatre and Hilde hustle under Trowa's waist-level to avoid being shot- got that, Trowa? Don't shoot below waist-level, and don't even shoot to the left once they move in. Everyone understand the maneuver? Good!"

Duo cradled his LAW, a tube and a rocket, and held the weapon steady around the corner. Without poking his head out, he fingered a shot.

"Awe!"

A most fearsome reply; a battery of heavy ultramodern machine guns barked a symphony down the narrow corridor, coordinated to leave not a square inch around the walls unoccupied by steel or lead. The rocket crossed the distance, but both forearm bones in both of Duo's arms suffered breaks, one hand punctured, and a finger needed stitching.

Regardless, Trowa retaliated full auto. WuFei gave it a count of seven before making his epic crawl maybe three meters down the pass.

At six thousand rounds per minute, Trowa returned the favor to those across the pass, discouraging most, drawing the attention of the intense few. One round nicked his meaty quadriceps, another ricocheted off his multi-barreled reaper, and only one caught a part of his skeleton, fracturing a carpal bone.

All worth it, because WuFei's charge keyed open a room. A following grenade cleared out the occupants. He's in.  
Trowa fell back to let his gun cool.

"Duo's vitals are intact?" He asked, sneaking a peak.

"Blood loss could have been much worse, and we've largely got it staunched, but he has a lot of openings. Ten," answered Hilde.

"I have two, one above the elbow, in the back of the arm, best place, and one in the right palm of my right hand, another fortunate place," Trowa said, explaining it's not a priority.  
He turned back to barraging.

"Change of plans, Quatre, you're advancing alone."

"I'm going." Trowa operated to Chang's script, shooting from the hip up, as Quatre hustled in a low profile, but by now, the opposition had wised up.

"Ouch!" Quatre made it, trailing a sign that the crossing came at a cost. Trowa radioed WuFei, keeping up the pressure nonetheless.

"Hey, we need something different this time. Chuck an assortment of grenades as Hilde makes a dash."

"When you say go."

So it was. At the signal of four simultaneous explosions, the colonist broke into the room.  
Duo, secured to Trowa's back, scurried with Trowa, who provided his own cover, with help from Quatre, maxing out his exhausted mini beam- cannons.

"Good work, Trowa, a security team managed to maneuver behind us, and was moving closer to an ambush when you moved in."

"I figured that was possible, Chang. I'm glad everyone's alright." In defiance, Duo's wounds reopened from the jostling, and Quatre collapsed from patching his own abdomen, while Hilde helped them to the bedroom bunks.

"Going so slow and upright like that, were you hit, Trowa?" He shook his head.

"Yeah, a five-round burst nailed my chest plate, but it held without injury," he responded, closing the damage in his hand, and contemplating the same for this arm.  
WuFei, meanwhile, issued a magazine worth of vitriol debate with the security force.

"I only have a few seconds worth of Gat ammo, so what's the plan past the next room?" WuFei considered.

"I think action beats reaction, so support my next leap."  
Chang, bringing Hilde to tail him, sprinted to the sound of the rotary spray. Explosion, Explosion, and they're in, but Barton's gun dissipates in lethality.  
Trowa utilizes Duo's neglected gun, pockets both Maxwell's and Winner's ammo, and stations himself in a chair.  
Both wounded fighters are conscious, and Hilde already handled applying localized anesthetics and ivies, so for the moment, he didn't have to worry about the patients.  
He radioed the other group.

"Guys, what's happening?" WuFei Chang's voice addressed the question.

"They're blacking out the cameras, so I guess they figured it out. I rigged an improvised surprise for a secret counter-assault, and I suggest you do the same, because they might be a few minutes away from that. Be sure to wheel our casualties to the bathroom, so fragments won't hit them, and find a good place to wait it out, over."

"Roger that, over." Surprisingly enough, the bunks did wheel, so Trowa followed his friend's advise to the letter, and he also added further protection with the top bunk mattresses to form an improvised natural disaster shelter.

Barton's practice of the universal knowledge of combat-cord snare combined with the easily manipulated grenade fuse offered the "surprise" WuFei suggested.

The offense has stalled, meeting an important requisite for a military blunder.

Trowa Barton made resourceful use of the lull in combat, stoically setting a firm clamp on Quatre Winner's abdomen wound, and mimicking the same treatment on Duo Maxwell's six arm wounds. He also set Duo's broken arms against long combat knives, and set the hand breaks against nail files he removed from multi function utility knives.

He elevated their legs to prevent shock, and had the two pilots drink off the water in their camel packs, to help avoid further dehydration. He had Quatre drink slower, because he wasn't sure what a stomach full of water would do to an abdomen wound. Probably nothing.

He inverted an infusion of blood for both of them, the last two bags, and reapplied the local anesthetics to the wounded areas. Soon, the pain would be serious, especially for Duo, but Trowa wasn't yet convinced his patients were ready for morphine doses. The effect of the sedative might still send them into shock when it slows their hearts.

Although Trowa had lost blood from his injuries, he drew a pint of blood from his own veins, because his friends would still need more. Don't worry; the Gundam pilots have compatible blood types.

Satisfied he'd collected enough, he then ventured to redress their wounds more thoroughly than before, gluing, stitching, and applying an antibiotic cream, bandaging, and wrapping. He also set Duo's bones more correctly than he did before.

"Your vitals are coming back to normal, the both of you," he smiled, "I'm now applying half a pint of my blood for each of you-"  
Two separate unusual explosions interrupted from both ends of the hall.

"They just walked into your trashed energy cannons, Quatre. I forgot all about that booby trap function," he observed, estimating the number of casualties.

"No more than ten were injured-"a wide assortment of small arms fire interrupted his summery.

"That would be the inevitable backlash against our theoretical charge at them, following the explosions," he summed up, "they'll only take a few minutes to regroup."

The extreme volley quickly trickled to silence, and Trowa refocused on his medical work.

"As I was saying, your vitals are coming back to normal, so I'll soon be able to relieve your pain, rather than just numb it. Your dressing is complete, and if you'll let me, I'll cover both of your torsos with the only two surgical gowns we brought along- heck of a coincidence."  
As soon as this was underway, WuFei called on the radio.

T: "What's up?"

W: "Hilde successfully sneaked to the third door to the right, so we now have a little more surprise over the enemy. I instructed her to stay off the airways, because they can triangulate transmissions. We have a no-show loop set for that room, so we don't have to worry about that. Over."

T: "Roger that, over."  
There's some relief.

Minutes Pass Duo and Quatre are sound asleep, pain free, and drinking up two bags each of a saltwater-vitamin solution, half of the medical stock. Trowa silently says a wish for a linkup with WuFei, so he could donate two pints of blood from his complete reservoir. As he's mumbling the wish, he stirs in a packet of Gatorade powder into his water-filled camel pack, and sips it up.

"Footstep trotting. Here it comes." His improvised mine fragments against the lead two invaders, answered by a gang of grenades and other hand-thrown explosives, including hefty delayed- fused demolition charges, satchel charges, and modern variants of claymores.

The first cast came to a near-tragic result: Trowa positioned a large furniture piece in harm's way next to the door, in result, the device landed only a foot away from the hurler when it detonated, causing serious burns. With three dead or injured in the assault, the team fell apart in spontaneous retreat to the hall.

"I have a funny feeling that didn't buy us much time," Trowa mused sleepily, waiting for news of WuFei's episode.

_**Down the hall**_

WuFei's battle opened the same way as Trowa's; his grenade/mine slumped two, and the following bombardment matched Barton's experience, but Hilda's sudden move changed the outcome a little bit.

Hearing the explosions, she thrust open the door, kicking a grenade soccer-style with her left foot, as she dropped the occupants of the opposite side of the hall, swiveled, and leveled aim at WuFei's attackers, really getting the drop on them.

WuFei exploits the opening, rushing to the entrance and blasting away.  
They covered each other and commandeered the fifth room to the left, completing the leapfrog maneuver gone wrong. Before the opposition could regroup, WuFei took the first turn sniping into the entryway, as Hilda supplied the explosives.

"Trowa, we have the last room down the hall. Are the wounded ready to move? Over."

"That's a negative, Hildie, but I'm rolling to cover your back, over."

"I understand, Trowa. We'll try to rush the power switch for the automatic sentry guns. Once we have it on, Abdul can clear us a way out of here. I'll tell you when to rouse the boys."

"Roger. Ready when you are."


	5. Columbian Gas

I assume my readers are fully satisfied with the action in the last chapter, so here's some more background in the Narcotic State. The tough banditos are coming soon, but I'll showcase a more pacific setting in the country, and I'll let Zechs opine on the world order his sister created.

_**Columbia**_

'_The dandiest part of a super-secret need-to-know mission his decidedly NOT the shortage of trusted manpower_,'

Zechs decided, riding out alone in the previously mentioned jeep with Noin to Bogotá.

'_But the choicest individuals aren't available in these more slackened times. Ideally, this would be a three or four man operation, with a rescue team available if it hits the fan. I'd like to have someone at the wheel while Noin and I do the takedown, but this time, we'll just have to make a more difficult extraction_.'

The entire operation is to take place at night, so the coed team assembled the canvas top on the puny utility vehicle, so Earth's flying parasites wouldn't suck out their blood, but Lucrezia Noin insisted on some exposure to fresh air, so they also installed the special mosquito net option, which won't be necessary once they reach the mountainous area around Bogotá.

"_About that area_," Zechs argued, 'they don't have a mosquito problem- certainly not in November, so we need to remove the nets, for the reason that a keen detective in the Bartista pocket might do a proper deduction, and figure out we're from the valley.'

Noin saw the point, and further suggested that they approach from the East, to further cover their tracks. Zechs agreed that might be necessary, and they whipped around the loop for that approach.

"Noin, we'll need to refuel at that Cuban National station. No use buying fuel with too much watered down additive."  
Cuban National gasoline is 50 sugarcane or sorghum ethanol alcohol (agriculture can be risky business, so the crop is diversified) and petrol synthesized from coal or shale milled by turbine windmills catching the trade winds. The gas comes in from the Trans-Caribbean Pipeline. Zechs is thinking about taking Noin to Havana once the mission is over.

"I'll fill up both tanks," he added, "Cubans will accept real money, right? None of that hard currency nonsense?" Of course, the Cubans aren't cut off from the wider world market.

They'd been itching to use their Preventer expense account for a while, and this is a fine time to stock up.  
Zechs accepted full service, rather than self-service, for a start.

"Fill up both tanks, will you? And wash up the jeep while your at it," he told an enterprising employee in the Cuban national jumpsuit. As silly as it is, this nationally endorsed fuel consortium is one of the few remaining vestiges of national sovereignty, a disturbing and humiliating circumstance within the greater Earth Sphere United Nation. All states, including the Sanc Kingdom, are limited to the same embarrassing status that the many Indian Nations carried in the United States from the 1830s into the twenty-first century of the Christian era.

Zechs shook it off. His own sister is responsible for this travesty, but he promised himself to make the best of it, even though he's still convinced the arrangement will never work. He bought some locally produced chocolate bars and other things to stop thinking about it, but he knows that the nationalism moratorium won't last forever, and if he's already taking the issue up with himself again, others all over the world must be doing the same.

"Hola Senor. I'll take everything I have in this basket, and I'd like the basket, too," he said to the clerk, adding, "and don't forget the full fuel service, esta bien?" Rule one of espionage: if everyone knows you're a foreign national (which no one is anymore, at least formally), you play the role of one that isn't fully versed in the native language or culture.

Zechs greeted the man by saying hello at the beginning of his conversation, and using a different greeting at the end, in effect sounding less than fully immersed in the culture, a sign of incomplete education, something unheard of in the intelligence community.

"Gracias, Senor," and the clerk named the price after sweeping Zechs' card. "Y Tu, doyarme un Buenos Noches," Zechs hopes he said "you too, have a good night." If not, so much the better for his role as the inept gringo tourist.

Hoping he's properly sensing the right sentiment from Noin, he took her arm as they walked back to the jeep.

"The guys will like seeing some of this stuff, right? Let's go, uh?"


	6. Columbian Arrest

_**Columbia**_

The neighborhood embracing Manuela's safe house is a gated community by the definition of an Israeli settler, with timeless crash fences encircling each estate, and with a single gate linking a "quadrant-"every four estates, to a single parking lot. Serving the lone gate were two security guards from a major Pan American firm. Cameras turreted on every corner, and a patrol bike regularly loitered by at every quarter of every hour. The guards were armed with the Alliance surplus infantry or MP gear Oz soldiers freely auctioned off after Operation Daybreak, and their duties consisted of little more than pressing a button to open the gate. Zechs discovered from the "confidential" website that the next shift swept the lawns and parking lot at the end of every hour, and a personal bodyguards come as a separate service.

Zechs and Noin drove by once, taking stock of the front gate.

"This one's wrought iron, as usual. The walls are concrete, probably steel-reinforced, with a stucco façade. The cameras are nothing special, and we're a few minutes into a new hour. What a foolish website they setup. I just had to setup a mailbox and wait for a codeword before I could access the "secure" site. A shame that," Zechs bragged, un-holstering his Oz- issued pistol, this one originally designed by Heckler and Koch (Chief Engineer Igor Tuberov confiscated H and K during the war), the gun holds fifteen rounds and is generally thought of as an M9 Baretta pompously embellished for the European aristocracy.

Noin followed his lead as she one-handedly made a left turn. One more point should be made about the security arrangement- the four houses share an outdoor pool- also mentioned on the "secure" website.

Zech's re-holstered his gun at the small of his back, Noin imitated the maneuver, and they disrobed their upper layers of clothing down to swim ware.  
Noin stole a look at the Count.

"Here we are barely in our twenties, with ideal beach bodies, and we're lucky to ever find a beach."  
Zechs returned a glance.

"So let's take a visit to Havana once we bring this guy in. I'll make weekend reservations, and you can hold me to it," he replied, hopefully not revealing he'd been planning it for eons.

Apparently not, for his consideration earned a light peck across the mouth, but not really a proper kiss. Darn.

They have the jeep parked at a playground parallel to the estates, so they uncomfortably stroll across the street in swimsuits under an LED streetlight, jaywalking, and the security bike is scheduled to prowl in a few minutes.

Across, Zechs hoists Noin atop the two-meter fence, and clutches to Noin's hand and swells over the wall. From there, it's a run across the length of one home to the pool.

"Please have water, please have water, jackpot!" They both expressed relief at the reflection of light from the pool surface, taking the time to partly immerse in the Op point.

"Manuela should be in the house to the front right, the furthest away, naturally," said Zechs sardonically, "we'll want to take the side door and hope we can take it down swiftly."  
Noin agreed, distantly, taking a lap across the surface of their side of the pool as the retiring security shift made their retiring rounds, something the Preventers took into account.

"How are y'all doing tonight?" They asked before clearing out.

"Fine, guys, this is a good night," said Zechs.

"Yeah, super," Noin replied gregariously.

"Glad too hear it. Have fun," they departed. They counted to sixty, then climbed from the pool.

"That's my experience with security guards; they're toadies with guns." Noin giggled, and retrieved her gun.

"Zechs." They got to business, keeping their guns directed down, and galloped to the door.

It gave under the Colonel's charge, and the couple jumped on the panicked response.

"Surrender immediately!" The side door opens into a kitchen (no occupants) into a dining room (empty) to some swinging doors, into the living room (occupied).

In that living room sat a fat console displaying an interrupted video game. The Preventers followed the controller cable to a Lazy Boy recliner, where they jointly expected a muzzle flash. Diving, they avoided just that.

Noin hit a couch positioned to the left, and returned fire. Zechs hit the carpet, but also retaliated.

As Noin retrained her aim, her partner advanced his hand over the chair arm, firmly gripping the shooter. The gun discharged again, Noin's bullet grazed the chair's left arm, Zechs quickly defused the battle.

"Got him. Noin, cover the entrance." On queue, she double-tapped a jarring hinge of the door. Zechs hurled his cuffed captive head first into the dining room floor, and hugged the wall as he flanked the door, aiming for a golden shot at a guard's temple. A head bobbed in; sorry friend. That guy doubled over, and Zechs followed by hooking his left arm around the entrance and triggering some blind one- handed shots, giving Noin an opening for a carefully aimed coup de grace.

"Get Manuela!" Zechs pursued by taking a shortcut outside to the parking lot, in effect also cutting off a route to the gate, while Noin more directly pursued inside the house.  
The result was a spectacular shoulder-tackle.

"Guess what, buddy? You're under arrest on the authority of the Preventers!" The trio scrambled down the extraction route, past the pool and over the back left cover wall.

Together, the Preventers aggressively lobbed Heorot clear over the fence, leaving him now burned _and_ bruised on consecutive days.

They followed, retrieved him, and escorted the prisoner into the jeep. A successful arrest.


	7. GBoy War

_**Inside the Somali Complex**_

In a democratic society that flaunts in its trappings of the Industrial Revolution, a large minority always gets the short end of the stick. Guns are manufactured for maximum sales, and those unable to afford the specialized guns running through smaller production just have to overcome their difficulties with the product the majority is using. I'm talking about left-handed shooters. On assault weapons like Oz submachine guns, steel shell casings fly out at hazardous speeds capable of bruising anyone standing in the wrong spot, and that spot would be just to the right of the gun, where the cartridges are ejected.

In Trowa Barton's situation, this negligible problem just had to be ignored, for he found himself having to shoot from his left side, or else face the alternative, expose himself to the business end of these sort of weapons.

Trowa tried to bare it, setting his face, holding his breath, and poking his gun and left eye out the door. He lined his tiny LED (light emitting diode) sight on another eye, a right eye, aiming at him just meters away. One shot, one punch in the cheek, but also one living Trowa. Straight ahead at eye level, easy, but so was the other guys shot.

"I'm okay. He slept on the trigger," he told himself, focusing on a second shooter, lying prostrate under the previous shooter's body.

His muzzle flashed, but his burst, flying in at under a thirty-degree slope, failed to climb as high as Trowa's wrists. He overcompensated just as Trowa discharged his own burst into his opponent's prone spinal area, severing it somewhere low. He'll live, but only if someone can set him in a spinal brace quickly enough. Sickbay is at hospital quality, Trowa reasoned, so they'd better try it.

An underhand pitch serves a grenade from the left side, making good skeet, and like a clay discuss, the oval fragmented really well when Trowa pierced it- close to the source. 03 followed the hand, triggering shots behind it until catching up just before it reached sanctuary.

"All right," it hurt to smile; yet he let the trace of one form, "a standoff is all I need, and that means exact shooting, just like this."  
The newly wounded grenadier surfaces a service pistol, squeezing off blind right-handed shots. He couldn't handle the recoil, however, and the result was terribly wild shooting.

Trowa carefully aimed, and completed the set by shattering that hand, too. He followed in quick succession by double-tapping a two-man rocket team settling for distance shots from the room of cubicles, to the wide entrance hall where Hilde and Chang were rolling.

This resulted in an embarrassment to the combat profession. One triggered his 125mm monster to the vicinity of those he supported, and the other overshot into the situations room ceiling.

Sadly, Trowa couldn't allow the relief medics to pass, sniping them as they darted across his path. Reinforcements kneeled and expelled the usual cover fire, but Trowa dulled their power by sniping rather than flinching.

To their credit, the machine gunners succeeded at supporting the medic and reinforcement crossing, but at the expense of being 03's primary targets.

Guns malfunctioned, shoulders cracked, hands broke, and faces picked up the same treatment, and Trowa never relented.  
In his role as vanguard, he levied the storm.

_**Over the Noventa Cannon**_

The basic doctrine to air warfare is to be at the rear of the enemy, be at a superior altitude, position yourself in the sun if possible, dive at high speed at the enemy, shoot him, and ideally, be done with it.

At close to 50,000 feet and twenty miles out, in the setting sun, Sally Poe, operating a straight-wing interceptor with delta and canard wings, held closely to fighter pilot gospel when she spied a deuce of Aries mobile-suits launch from a hanger in pursuit of a Mogadishu-bound Lear jet, as the Preventers scheduled it.

She pickled her entire payload of multi-fused glide bombs before accelerating in a violent ballistic dive.

Twin red brackets painted the two suits, triggering a pleasing alarm. Sally twitched her selection for a duel firing of middle-ranged radar- guided missiles for each suit, and double-tapped the firing stud on her carefully handled HOTAS joystick. The plane rocked ever so slightly, and four telephone poles chased after those two red brackets. They arced, planning to knock the roof in on the flying beetles.

Rather lethargically, those suits pivoted toward the threat. To late; the four rails transferred kinetic energy on four points, puncturing four holes, then exploding four identical white flashes, all into the "heads" of these beetles.

An infrared missile each inserted itself up the intakes for both suits even before the Aries' doctoring computers could assess what happened with the radar-riders.

Preventer Water skirted to the extreme edge of the enemy target package, and held a lengthy Vulcan exchange with the lead suit.

She volleyed all parts of the torso, and kept at it. She spilled bullets still as she brushed past at well over mach two.

Her mask breathed in air, the world flooded into view, but concussive forces pulled her away. Poe bit at it, inhaled/exhaled against it, recollected herself. The jet caught thermals above the water, and turned nose toward the city. In it's wake, that Aries deuce breached the ocean.

_**On The Coast**_

Sally's fighter got the jump on a pair of airborne suits, and clusters of lethal rain pockmarked the entire island. The carriers, those glide-bombs, nosed in as kamikazes at the complex's rising laser turrets. To slow, the turrets couldn't unfurl for their spider holes, nor could they duck back under in time.

Rashid felt encouraged by these events, and aimed all his remaining missiles on the big cannon itself.

"No-no-no-no-no!"  
It fired. An aerial cluster waxed white, illuminating the sky. Thousands of burning munitions followed the interceptor jet- over the city!  
Rashid avenged the city in anger, launching his alpha strike at his best targeting solution. Thunder thrashed his ears, quaking his inner gyroscope, but these missiles launched, and met their destinies afterward.

Encouraging news; their impacts bore multiple secondary infernos! Behind him, the same happened.  
But his eyes remained fixed ahead, as another shell climbed heavenward.

"No, I killed you!" The shelter he and Quatre dug intruded only ten feet ballpark under the beach. Also, they made it of sand.  
Here it comes...

_**The Sky over Mogadishu**_

Thunderclaps combine in a shock-and-awe symphony of sight and sound, heated air-current toss the Lear and the interceptor into the upper strata, both in flat spins, and the control surfaces of both planes are unresponsive. Fuel tanks resealed, but only after leaving little more than fumes aboard.

Nichol manually cranked out the landing gear on the Lear to cut the spin rate. Second, he counter-rotated the plane against the spin best he could with the limited control surfaces still available.

"This is your pilot speaking: could everyone come to the nose of the plane?" A strange request, but even the injured rushed as fast as possible.

"Thanks for the weight, guys, I have the nose down. You may seat yourselves now."  
Okay, the runway is pockmarked, so crank the wheels back up, 'cause only a belly landing is even thinkable now.

"Attention passengers: we just survived an attack by a revolutionary organization, and in this attack, a great portion of the airport was destroyed, so we'll have to land on our belly, or else the plane could be flipped over and I'd lose face with all the other pilots in East Africa," he explained in his best "awe shucks" drawl.

Flying at his right wing was Sally Poe. '_Not bad for a girl, but those canards give her more control surfaces to survive the attack_.'

Sally: "Hey there! Forget you have thrust vectoring on that civvie shuttle?" Nichol: "Na, I had a fuel rupture, and I wasn't sure how much I'd have left if I tried that, and I didn't see the status bar on the vectoring system as I fixed our predicament. Mind giving me a look over to see if the readout is lying to me?"

Sally: "Sure, I'll peek around, but you have to check my rig, too."

Nichol: "Rodger."  
Turns out both planes had honest computers.

Nichol: "How's your petrol reading?" Sally: "The bloody thing was built in America. Reading 108 pounds."  
The former Oz officer converted the number in his head.

Nichol: "You're good to wait in the pattern for a lap or two, but I need to put down. Why don't you empty your Vulcan in the meantime?"

Sally: "Sure thing."  
Nick forgot the fuss that would cause with the passengers.

"Everyone remain calm. That's our escort, Preventer Water, dropping a little weight. Sorry about that."  
He approached the field, carefully using the throttle drop altitude, because the elevators are busted to Hades and Heck.  
He figured he had too little fuel to worry about creating a fireball, so he didn't bother to jettison any on his way down. Best just to burn it.  
The fire crew is dead, so they aren't out. No air traffic controllers are talking. The planes on the ground are slag and smithereens, with several pieces in transition phases.

These conditions make the situation primitive, so good thing Nichol had a pioneering spirit.

Now he's just over the Earth, and he wants to reach stall speed without pitching up his nose or impacting with the ground.  
Keep the weight of the thrust just below that of the plane; he vectors his exhaust directly below him, just like in a vertical landing. Except he still has some ground speed?

Touchdown, the jet buffets and scrapes across the horrid runway, and a wing tips over, catching the ground and bringing about an unwanted S- turn, but nobody's hurt.

"Sally, I've got the plane down. Good work out there, by the way." Sally accepted his flattery, and made a gentler landing in her less beat-up combat plane.  
Nichol ejected the emergency escape ramp, and offered Relena Darlian the way out.

"Be sure to assist our older guests on their way down," the pilot suggested.

"Oh I will, Lieutenant Nichol," she asserted before sliding out. Nichol groaned in embarrassment when his passenger's skirt hiked up on the slide down.

'_Well at least she went first, so no one but Sally and I saw that_.'

Next was Relena's widowed mother, who sensibly held tightly to her garments, then some colony delegates and Darlian family friends, and finally Nichol himself.

"Our staff car is probably gone, so we'll just have to hike it to Maxwell House. Some of you ladies may experience trouble walking on those heels, but we'll need to keep moving no matter how much it hurts, got that?" Nichol felt a little distress having to walk across ravaged Mog. Khat-chewing brigands might be roaming already, and together with Sally, that pits two gunmen against possibly platoon-strength vehicle-mounted brigands.  
Sally jogged over, offering a high-five.

"You're not bad with a stick," he said.

"Right back at you." Through silent agreement, they un-holstered their service pistols and herded the passengers in a march for Maxwell House. Nichol carried the bigger mini Uzi, a pre Earth Sphere Alliance piece, and Sally gripped her standard Alliance pistol, a more Spartan weapon than the aristocratic Oz hardware.

"I have enough clips to hold off a sizable force," said Nichol, displaying the mags strapped to his jacket.

"Good for you, but I only have enough to count on one hand." That didn't sound like a boast at all.

_**Inside the complex**_

Research indicates that an attacker with a twelve-inch or longer blade is on an equal footing with a shooter equipped with a self-reloading pistol of 9mm or less from 5 meters or less, but Chang WuFei, Gundam Pilot, likes to topple expectations.

Brandishing a crescent-shaped blade of twenty-six inches, WuFei pitted himself against security considerably up-gunned for that premise.

"Ah!" With a slashing sword, animal blind fury actually counts for something, and WuFei invested a deep check for his super-toned body to collect.  
He flicked his sword-wrist and glanced across a jugular artery, swept it back across someone's intestines, rowed it around him, wind milled, cross-slashed, and basically just ran through a '_kata_' sequence, brutally clearing a path for Hilde to crawl passed the tumult.

WuFei un-strapped his SMG once past the entrance, knowing that the situations room offered the defenders to much standoff range for shooting him.  
He nudged his gun around the entrance, set the gun to five round bursts, squeezed a shot, counted to two, did it again, and continued the repetitive process while Hilde, at extreme personal risk, snaked through the room past desks, chairs, tables, and cubicles, until at last she reach the unattended on switch. WuFei's 50-round magazine held out for ten bursts, equaling about thirty seconds worth of distraction, just long enough.

'_Standing meant death. No one would miss her sudden movement, right? So don't move suddenly, stupid!_' Hilde Schbeiker changed orientation, knelt toward forward, and carefully sprayed a clip around WuFei. In the hurried state of combat, people only have time to scrutinize so many facts, right? So the brain only processes to find what looks out of the ordinary, right? SO, once Hilde does exactly what's expected, the mind says 'friend,' and the fight response will only activate if things (1) look to unordinary, or (2) Hilde turns her gun on them, right?

She doesn't, she just pops out her clip as it empties, goes through the motions of reloading, and slyly flicks on a lever.  
Mission accomplished. She ducks under a desk. Now Abdul has to upload his software into the automatic sentry guns.


	8. Bringing in our man

_**Columbia**_

Zechs exercised a brilliant improvisation he conjured at the military academy once upon a time distant from current events. In one troubling assignment in the wilderness outside of Lake Victoria, Zechs led a platoon of other students in "backwater irregular operations," and he had the burden of holding the losing member of a village feud in custody. He had to safely bring this village troublemaker in for punishment without violating the perp's dignity, as tribal custom saw it, or else he'd lose their support in the area. He could bind the man's arm's behind his back, according to custom, but never ever bind a man's feet- that take's away his dignity as a man- because men walk. If you do tie a man's feet, you are stating that this man is a baby, and he needs to be taught the proper ways of the baby. "Stay in your place, Baby."_**  
**_

This tribe wouldn't be a hit at the Special Olympics or a military hospital, but in the bush, he had to respect their ways. So, he cleverly removed the mosquito nets from the platoon's jeep windows, and used them to staple a barrier between the front seats and the back. Keep the windows rolled up, put the bound prisoner in the back, and let him kick the improvised barrier cage if he wishes; it won't do him any good.  
Zechs smiled, finished.

"Do you remember, Noin?" She glanced away from the road, smirked.

"Yeah, I was the opposing platoon leader, and my solution was-"they said it together.

"-Tie him to the hood and let the legs dangle!" Zechs peeked over his shoulder.

"What do you think of that, boy?" Unexpectedly, Manuela answered.

"Have you ever heard of a bag party, Lieutenant?" The Count's jaw floored the jeep.

"No way!" Noin swore.

"Oh, he did."

"Yup, me and some of the other boys redistributed our rations so we'd have a spare rucksack, and roped it tightly around him, then we laid him on the floor and set our guard in the back, feet pressed against him at all times!"  
Noin corroborated the story.

"Alex led the other group. He had Mueller sat on him."  
Zechs again looked back to leer at Heorot.

"You are SO lucky, boy." The Gemini pilot refused to agree.

"By the way," Noin summarized, "Treize added Zechs' method to the next printing of the manual."

Zechs chuckled nostalgically, while Noin found wonder in recent events. 'What a pleasant and cordial trip this is turning out to be?'

**_Airline Terminal, Bogotá Columbia_**

The crowd had plenty of reasons to stare, but in this case, the Lightning Count wasn't sure which reason applied.  
'(1) Is it because I'm the Peacecraft that tried to kill them all? (2) Because I'm the brother of the Peacecraft that ruled the world? (3) Because Noin and I have a prisoner, and are wearing badges with swimsuits? Do we belong in a Bay Watch spin-off? (4) Related to reason three, do we just look too good? In that case, is it Noin or me they're looking at?  
At the desk, they flashed their badges.

"Preventers Wind and Fire. We need aboard our direct flight to Panama City, please."

The clerk swiped Fire's card, saw they have the proper E-certificate to carry firearms, and yes, they are expected in Columbia. Everything's in order.

"Si, Vamanos." The clerk waved them along.

"Next!"

**_In the air_**

The Preventers relieved some tension in the best seats their expense accounts allowed for them, a respectable seating, since they've both let a surplus grow to this point. Zechs bothered to rationalize it in his head, in case Une decides to make an issue of the expense.

'_We're working through Thanksgiving, a very important holiday in our era. Do you expect us to miss out on ALL the festivities? Besides, I'm starting a portion of my vacation right now_.'

He allowed himself to relax a little, granted, but volunteered to watch Manuela while Noin reclined for a nap.

'_So I lose a little sleep? I needed the time to make reservations anyway_,' he thought, purchasing tickets, hotel rooms, a rental car, and dinners, all patched through his passenger terminal.

Heck, he ordered special furnishings and songs for the rooms. And a cruise, a snorkeling tour, a chauffer for the car, and a parasailing ride. 

'_No more_,' he resisted further impulses, '_I've spent too much already. Can I refund any of this_?' That won a smile. '_Oh yeah, I see I can return the extra room, but I can't be that forward, can I_?' Of course he could, but erred on the side of caution. Two rooms it is.

"Ah, Sir, are you sure about those song selections? If you're really looking for romance, you shouldn't choose such old songs that were considered old-hat even when they were new!" 

Zechs turned a sour face toward his prisoner.

"Look here, buddy, those songs are considered FUN, alright, and for such a FUN setting as the vacation spots of Havana, the music should be more FUN than romantic, okay?"  
Okay.

**_ Shore of Somalia_**

Finally, I see the light. I get it. I truly understand the pain of childbirth, because my current predicament makes a perfect analogy. At least, if I hold to that thought, I'll have the drive to keep going. I'm a submerged seed, but I am blessed with the preternatural gift of new life! Kick!

"Ah!"

My thighs burn, but my hamstrings have the constitution of a Jurassic Titan on a testosterone diet. 

"I'm with you, Denzel, King Kong ain't got it on me either!" Ever sprout from a seed before? Than you don't know what this is all about! I'm Rashid, proud Maguanac.

"And now Lazarus don't have it on me either!" That Got Dang cannon spared me one with that cluster shell, but I'll be out of the picture awhile. Heck, the tide might sweep in and kill me, but now that I'm out of my grave...I can pass out.


	9. Preventers Breaking Through

Luxemburg City  
  
A dialogue box abruptly jumps out at Abdul, reading: "New hardware device activated. Install new hardware device?"  
He tagged the info button.  
"New hardware device labeled: 'three-barreled sentry gun.' Do you wish to install?"  
He decided, "Yes."  
"New device preparing to install, please wait." He waited a moment.  
"Nombril Installation Protecting Software loading... 1%, 50%, 79%, 95%... 99%, 100%" That window closes.  
"Where do you wish to save sentry gun installation software?"  
"Who gives a bit?" Abdul selects the default location.  
"One moment, please. 1%... 32%...50%, 75% (sticks)...99%, 100%. Installation complete. Save?"  
He does, and presses a special hotkey.  
"Uploading IAI (Israeli Aircraft Industry) 'Sentient Sentinel Killware' program version 11. Please read licensing agreement."  
Abdul gave it a glance.  
"This product is patented by IAI. Please don't reverse engineer, copy, or redistribute software, especially to Arabs angry with our statehood...yada, yada, yada."  
Abdul checks the agreement box, and gets things moving.  
"Loading...100%"  
"Whoa! This software is topnotch to load that fast!"  
"Done. Would you like to visit the IAI store or register for updates concerning our products?"  
Hmm.  
"Sure, I'm not busy," he clicked the store's link.  
  
Inside the complex  
  
Crouched behind his massive wraparound desk, Polk Browning mentally sifted through all the sensory information he could, counting WuFei's staccato, time-consuming use of ammunition, inspecting his troops, and analyzing every factor in hopes of intercepting the coming leap-from insertion.  
He galvanizes himself as he plants the butt-end of his service pistol between his eyes, callously steadying the weapon against his hands, brow, and desk.  
He lines up his radioactive sight with the Preventer, closes his index finger over the trigger.  
"O sh—" The pain of a broken nose fades as soon as he sees, a young female with violet hair duck under a desk.  
'She's not being shot at...' Somewhere, a neuron fires, and Polk recollects his previous order to shutdown the sentry guns. A hacker had taken over the base, so he ordered a technician to manually cut the power... from a lever right there!"  
Hilde closed her eyes and counted upward, while tucking herself into a ball. From under the desk, gunfire sounded highly punctuated. Fighters must be doing a lot of shooting and scooting. Her count grows, and she wonders if Abdul has it together, when ice suddenly runs up her back, dissipates, and fluid runs down her thigh.  
Her spine jolts again, and now the fluid also leaks from her buttocks. Feebly, she throws herself away from the desk.  
Another savage bullet severs a tendon at her heel. No choice, she lobs a vertical volley, knowing the assailant stands somewhere above. Pain sets in, especially at the swelling ankle.  
Her eyes water, and awareness fades. But first, Hilde remembers to re- station beneath the desk.  
Intensity multiplies, and Hilde audibly senses the world crack apart.  
"Abdul, I waited for you." External awareness dissipated.  
"Awe men. Oh ouch," Chang rasped, waddled away in agony. He folded over, leaned with the wall, and trudged away from the situations room.  
He felt the top edge of his chest plate, just below the neck. Light bleeding. The titanium bent into his sternum, where he couldn't dislodge it. He felt where the ricocheted projectile grazed his neck. More blood, but he felt relief no vitals were hit.  
He steeled himself, as he redoubled his effort to remove the metal sheet from his chest bone.  
WuFei couldn't grit away his scream. His face flushed with color, tears streamed his face, his hands bled from removal, but Chang freed himself from it.  
"An ugly mess," he marveled, "but I can't stop 'till Hilde's out."  
"Abdul," he radioed, "watch your fire, I'm going in." He switched open a knife and led it across his body armor, until the fabric's grip on the chest plate slackened, then he tossed it aside.  
Finished, he moved ahead.  
"Hey Abdul, notify the hospital that my collar bone is broken, will you?" Abdul complied, and WuFei probed around the door with his SMG. A few terminals dimly glowed, and some office items fueled scattered torches, but the available light scarcely revealed details to the eye. He'd only seen imagery like this a few times, and all of those were bombed-out underground parking lots or war-wrecked colonies.  
"Hilde!" The Gundam pilot dived into the room as tracer rounds answered his cry. Meanwhile, the tri-barreled sentinel snuffed away that answer.  
"Awe!" Even before things quieted, Chang oscillated in severe pain after diving his raw wound into computer debris and table chipping.  
His arms came to the threshold of buckling, but he lifted himself enough to continue the retrieval.  
"Hilde!" His heart paused once the search passed over to a rescue.  
Schbeiker's blood flowed much like a crimson gown down her limp legs, the only consolation being it dried and clotted before WuFei's concerned eyes.  
"Hey, you're staunching the flow even as you sleep, good, very good, but I need to see you awake, alright?" He pleaded, shaken by the woman's condition.  
"Come on," weakened, he struggled to gently drag her body away from the desk. He fastened his arms under her armpits and uncomfortably clasped his hands over her chest, and took baby steps slowly backward. He made timely progress, but blood pooled to her lower extremities and the feet dragged blood across the floor. Nonetheless, WuFei heard her breath sputter, then her chest heave. She's still alive. They cleared the door when WuFei relapsed. The bright corridor lighting gave him fatigue, and even his own weight felt like an impossible burden.  
"Trowa, I can-"his degenerative state cutoff the sentence, and he felt nothing but the sensation of being carried after that.  
  
In the city of Mogadishu  
  
"Well, I guess you can figure the worst case scenario will creep up on you in Mog," quipped Nichol, venturing a shot toward a squad-strength insurgent force.  
As far as Nichol could make out, these fighters, totaling to no more than thirty, were trying to envelope them by holding all the houses on the street, so their vehicles could mow them down.  
He ducked behind a donkey cart, tugging Silvia Noventa with him.  
"I want you to listen to me," he shouted, making sure she heard him, "all of those guys have guns, so they'll lose their night vision every time they shoot, understand?" He made sure she did, then continued, "you don't have a gun, so I need you to be my night vision. Can you do that?" She nodded.  
"Good, I haven't spoiled my sight yet, so I'll peek over and shoot. Keep your eyes closed."  
He elevated his knee with his left leg, aimed from and kneeled position, and ripped open the chest of a machine gunner atop a Subaru buggy.  
"You have to look now, and please excuse the mess." She opened her adjusted eyes, and intently scoped the street. Marquee Wayridge stood fully erect, steeling himself for a careful shot. Sally and Releana crouched behind a donkey trough, and others lay spread-eagled further behind the trough.  
The Marquee, far to the left, ejected a massive slug from his dueling pistol. It kicked back his hands, and the round shattered the Subaru's windshield, kept going, entered the driver's head, and left no head above the lower mandible.  
Silvia shrieked. A rifle barrel periscoped from some flowing green curtains in a house behind the aged aristocrat, focusing on him.  
"There," she commanded, guiding Nichol with her right index finger. A loud crack deafened her left ear, and she saw a body fall through the window.  
The flash dampened her sight, but still she looked, assuming Nichol lost more vision.  
Tracers followed Wayridge. He leaped, but too slow. They walked up and down him as he fell, leaving no doubt he was gone.  
Before turning away, Silvia witnessed, his gun, a single shot, but still re loadable, jump and flash inches above the ground.  
She visually followed it. It journeyed around a corner, but a matter of seconds later, a headless body collapsed into view.  
Sally followed Releana's finger. Miss Noventa couldn't see what happened, but she did notice the female duo turn to another target.  
Nichol's blazing gun jarred her mind away. His bullets pierced a balcony window, but again, she failed to witness what the target was.  
Then, a retreating mechanical noise caught her attention.  
"There it goes," she pointed, and Nichol holed the tailgate, corrected, and pockmarked the machine gunner.  
"Stay low and out of sight," he directed, "I'm emptying this house." She prostrated herself, ear to the dirt.  
His boots shrank to her eye, and the battle suddenly felt far less like something under her complete control. Still, she submitted.  
She now couldn't see anyone, just anonymous tracers, fired by nameless, faceless people. 


	10. Seeds of Trouble

_**Panama City, Panama **_

Zechs still remained glued to the net when the pilot notified passengers to buckle up for landing, and an item of breaking news deeply concerned him. Reports were on the slim side, but Preventer HQ issued a notice in 'Wind's' mailbox about a serious brushfire in Somalia, where a Preventer taskforce is encountering a situation. Director Une raised the threat level in the Middle East, the theater in which Somalia is located, to Defense Condition One, but has not yet raised the Earth Sphere threat level.  
The Lightning Count probed the roster in the area, and found the usual suspects were assigned to clean it up.

'_I knew about the party over there,' he mused, 'Une must have been working on this assault for sometime, so I'm sure things are under control, but she left me out of the loop, as usual_.' He smiled slyly.

'_Well, she must have decided she can rain on my parade by dropping this bomb on me instead. Sorry, Director, but my vacation is between me and my still unsuspecting bride_.'  
He dropped his mail in his bin, peeked over at his romantic interest, saw she still slept, and dumped her notice.

"Hey, it's never wise to base a relationship on dishonesty," whispered the prisoner, "skeletons always tend to wash up from the sand, amigo."  
Zechs agreed, in principal, but retorted,

"As an heir of an aristocratic family, you should know the most lasting marriages are based on deceit. What Noin and I have is true love (he blushed), and Une is the modern version of the parent overly concerned with bloodlines and titles. I won't bore you with the details, but the parable works out, and I'm rather fond of it. You see the point, I take it?"

"I do, but I merely wanted to counsel you away from grief for your own benefit. I still urge you away from this course."  
Zechs logged off.

"Agreed, but I've already pulled too many strings on this just to let it go at that. You know, you're reasonably smart when you're sober, so how did you get involved in drugs?" Heorot almost bristled at the question.

"Okay, fair enough. I am not involved in that arm of the business, nor do I entertain thoughts of running drugs for Mordred. I'm still a soldier, Zechs. I'm just working for an unsavory employer, that's all. I love my profession and lifestyle too much to give it up, understand? I really can't picture myself doing something more... common, than piloting a mobile-suit as an old Special. I flew a Taurus in the Treize Faction, left Somalia to find Gundams to fight, and operated a Serpent in the Christmas Rebellion. Every time, those kids from space cut my career short, by rooting out my employers. You, I have to ad, are the first to actually defeat me, but I don't mind it so much. Mordred and I, you probably know, have ties as close as you and Treize, you know. We're close cousins, and we spent years at the same ranchero as kids, studied at the same gymnasium, and were friends for all those years. Let me finish. So I'm finished with the second Operation M, and I'm out of my profession again. No fault of my own, I damaged those Gundams, when Mordred pays me a call. He thinks out loud that he's impressed that I broke a Gundam heat shortal with a shot, and also congratulates me on blowing a leg off the White Taurus, and I naturally thank him for the flattery, when he cuts to the chase. He has this up-scaled manned Virgo suit, and he's looking for a pilot who can handle it. Naturally, I take him up on the offer, because he offered me a Gundam! I just can't refuse that, right? So you see, I didn't even think about the drugs, I just wanted the Gundam, you know?"

"Yeah, I hear you, sorry if I insulted your honor," Zechs brushed it aside. The stewardess begins letting people off the plane, and Zechs gently shrugs Noin awake.

"Morning, Beautiful, time to hand our man over to the jailors," he invited, helping her up.

"Sure, Zechs, but only if you keep up the sweet talk." Zechs appeared puzzled.

"What do you mean, Pet, I thought we were talking shop." She didn't know what had gotten into him, but the Count's sudden utility of pet names seemed to promise something really special, and unquestionably welcome.

**_ Maxwell House_**

"I thank every single one of you for taking timeout from your busy lives to come here in this portion of Africa going through so many difficult changes, so we can unify to say thanks to the divine for delivering us through all our foolish behavior over the years.

"God, we have again and again rejected your gifts to us. You provide us with all the building material we need to live comfortably through your necessary weather patterns, but we time and again refuse to see these items for what they are. When you grant us a surplus of these items in good faith, we often don't reach out and assist others in building the same sanctuaries. Instead, we tend to stop construction of sanctuaries altogether, and we put together instruments that bring misery to those with less fortune than ourselves. Only now are we accepting that our behavior must be mended, and only now are we focusing more on rebuilding your gifts that we destroyed. For many passing years on this rock, in the sky above, and even in the void of space, men have slain each other, willfully creating a condition of misery, and since, most of us only speak out to you for the sake of being forgiven, but now, I have learned from these remarkably hardy people on this continent, that it is essential that we be thankful for the mercy and love you have already given us. We are grateful for the things you've shown us. Amen!"

A massive crowd of greatly diverse people applauded and corroborated the great truth in the prayer of Duo Maxwell. Duo joined the applause, then gestured for everyone to be seated.

Bishop Douglas of Liberia had the honor of carving the turkey, a giant bird raised in Waco, Texas, on the ranch of President Murphy, of the United States. Douglas was a man in his seventies, and a possible Pope in the next few years. He firmly partitioned the bird with a placid face, a sign of potential longevity in his role in the Vatican.

Saucers loaded with turkey exchanged hands until all hands had meat or a soy substitute. Other foods moved in the same fashion until everyone had a meal in compliance to the food pyramid.  
Bishop Douglas led a second prayer, and everyone began to eat. That taken care of, Duo dropped out of sight, and faded away before anyone realized he was a hologram.

**_Streets of Mogadishu  
_**  
Nichol reappeared from his reconnoiter duty, and walked a door to Marquee Wayridge.  
"The brigand squad is falling back, so we have time to move him," he addressed the group, particularly Releana, and sprinted to the derelict old Subaru. He hauled the bodies out, and shifted the old buggy in gear.  
"Put him in, and we'll drive to Maxwell House," he commanded, and Releana and Silvia lifted him into the back.  
"I'll take the big gun," Poe declared, climbing into the back. Silvia administered crude CPR under Sally's medical direction, and Releana, taking the passenger seat, accepted Sally's pistol.  
The other four representatives sat in the back, trying to give Silvia and Sally room to operate.  
With everyone settled in, Nichol raced toward Maxwell House.

**_A short distance away_**, the brigand leader blockaded the direct routes to the hospital, setting remote mines and easily ignitable fire trenches on every road.  
He listened to the low rumble of the coming buggy, and waited in anticipation. The sound grows...and fades, then disappears.  
He's shocked, and furious. These westerners always think about their wounded! What do they think they're doing, letting a valuable western life dissipate like that?  
He fumes, thinking of a contingency plan.  
"We tried, guys, but those imperialists knew what they were doing for once. No matter, we can move on. We have the airport, and we're trucking out a royal Lear jet and a fighter today. We're also salvaging all the booty a western airport is treasured with. So, we'll just loot all these vulnerable houses and call it a day." They didn't cheer, but they'll be surprised to learn just how much they've gained already. Plenty of cars to replace that one Subaru, the jets, a few ordinary planes lucky enough to survive the shelling, lots of jet and car fuel in underground containers, and plenty of delicious western food. Just look at the bright side, dudes, you'll also find a lot of new trinkets in these houses!

**_Nichol_** made it through the security gate less than fifteen minutes later. He shouted at the guards, and one got on the phone to the paramedic squad, who ran out a red crossed door and received them.  
"We have a medical emergency! He's full of gunshot wounds and needs desperate attention!" Sally demanded, helping the girls unload him.  
"Roger, we have him, ma'am," an EMT said, opening his bag, "by the way, great job you did on him. I'm getting strong readings on the EKG."  
Sally grunted/laughed.  
"Well thank you, I was a Field Doctor once. Take care of him."  
"We will," he said, and carted Wayridge to the operating room, "I'll see you in a bit, to tell you how he's doing."  
Sally helped everyone out.  
"Well, he's out of our hands now, so let's get cleaned up and try to mingle," she advised. Nichol seconded.  
"Remember, through good and through bad, you still have duties as representatives of the people, so go made democracy work. Go party and press flesh."


	11. MASH Extraction

_**Inside the complex**_

Trowa Barton gave his thanks to Abdul for cleaning up most levels with the sentry guns. That allowed him to leave Quatre and Duo completely unattended as he bedded WuFei and Hilde in the twin room across the hall._**  
**_

He split the remaining supply of Intravenous fluids, the salt water and plasma, between his new patients, and needled both right and left arms, doubling the output, while maintaining a modest drip.

He had to place Hilde on her stomach, because of the buttock wound, yet he was still compelled to elevate her legs, in order to slow blood loss. He didn't like it, because he might cause permanent back pain. He disliked the next step even more.

His palms perspired as he slid his arms under her, unfastened her pants. He mumbled a curse, and unpeeled the gooey fabric. Her legs looked like those of a fowl immersed in commercial barbeque sauce. He wrapped bandaging over the thigh, and padded the entry and exits wounds with sterilizing cotton. Next, he visibly gagged after removing her footwear. Trowa didn't know how to treat this type of wound, so he merged a cold pack with a foot wrap, and treated it like a major sprain, but first, he repositioned her dangling tendon the best he could, and set it with a bandage of its own.

Thinking, he puts miscellaneous objects under the posterior of her mattress, and removes the pillows elevating her legs. Now, her back is in alignment, and her blood is still localized around her vital organs. Trowa winces, and curses himself for not thinking of it before.

Now for the buttocks. With no other option, he breathes deeply, and removes his patient's privacy. The cheek is still dripping when he makes an incision with a razor. His explores under the skin and finds the bleeding canal, a big fat artery. He fetched two forceps, and clips them to both sides. A buildup of pressure resisted, but Trowa didn't give in. He tied it up, and sewed it together with holding sutures. Like the Army Corp of Engineers, Trowa didn't believe any extra protection should be dismissed as superfluous, so he took the extra step of tubing around the wound with some tape (with drops of glue) before removing the skin retractors, and sealing the skin shut with more glue. He then added some local anesthetic to the butt, and actually burned the top layer of skin on both the entry and exit holes.

Satisfied the worst was over, he wrapped her up for privacy, and reenacted the procedure on her thigh.

"My expert opinion is that you'll be fine," he whispered, keeping a clinical eye on her. Dr. Barton felt confident enough to set Hilde on her back, though flipping her over took some doing, but he triumphed without ripping out her IV tubes.

He walked over to WuFei and reenacted only the final stages of his operation with Hilde, administering local anesthetic, and burning the wounds shut. None of his arteries where hit, and the capillaries where healing on their own, after all.

Why scare them? He concealed the burns by wrapping more bandages. As mentioned earlier, '_superfluous_' isn't part of his dictionary, so he saw no sense in being frugal.

"'A penny saved is a penny depressing the economy,' I always say," he explained, examining the EKGs.

WuFei looked good, but Hilde looked almost beyond reach.

"She's dying," he alerted, even as he swabbed his own arm, "Trowa's Log: The last drips of IV fluid are draining into my two newest patients, Chang WuFei, and Hilde Schbeiker. Abdul, since they are comatose, I'm drinking off most of their camel pack water supplies, and delivering the remainder to my two incapacitated wounded in the other room. I'm also forcing myself to eat their rations, and instructing my two waking patients to eat theirs. I'm eating for three because Hilde's dire condition compels me to siphon a large portion of my own blood into her veins. Once my two partially recovered patients and I are finished with our tasks, we'll work together to wheel the injured out through the Aries hanger. At that new op point, Duo and Quatre, will wheel down the service road to the extraction point, where they'll motorboat into Mogadishu. I'll then reenter the complex, and try to disable the manual firing station within the Noventa Cannon. As you know, Abdul, that is the only room isolated enough to require a man-sized ventilation shaft, so I'll crawl down that, and sporadically feed the team's handful of sedative and tear gas grenades in their until a mop up posse can be arranged to storm the room. Trowa out."

"Roger, Trowa. Nichol, Sally, Dorothy, and Townsend are all at the rally point of Maxwell House. I'm in the process of paging Townsend. Please stand by."


	12. Preventers Central Office Building

_**Preventer Central Office Building,  
Luxemburg City, Luxemburg**_

For yet another period of her seemingly ancient life, a simple phenomenon shattered all of Director Une's illusions of destiny. Like a team of petty wallet-stealers, her group of information specialists robbed the raw feed of a global news provider only minutes before broadcast. They were too impotent to suppress the airwaves, and that was just the latest reminder of her current status in comparison to complete nobodies called the "free press."_**  
**_

She examined dead or dying Africans, flailed about much like the cement rubble. Some camera feeds were intimate ground-level video, and a few others were aerial shots capturing the wider devastation.  
Her knees stiffened, so she sat, and dragged herself from her fit.

'_That overhead strongly resembles the aftermath of a massive earthquake in an underdeveloped city, so I have to set the ballpark casualty estimate as high. That means as many as thirty thousand people will die from this in the next five days. That's not much less than the estimated casualty count for the other terrorist scenarios. Those we could've handled, but how could our agency have prevented this_?'

"Dispatcher," she pointed, "patch me a line to the relief agency, and put them on right away!"  
The dispatcher hand signaled "ok," and performed her magic. A Nordic man came online.

"Deputy Director Erickson, my department lost an important struggle in the capitol of Somalia tonight, and the innocents of Mogadishu are now suffering the cruelty of terrorism. They need a massive humanitarian airlift to sustain life to an estimated seventy-five thousand residents in the next six hours, and they need the precious alert teams by the next hour. Can you rally the troops?"  
Erickson's Valhalla-bound spirit sank.

"I issued the automatic alert. So what happened?" She blandly summed up the events.

"A group of unknown terrorists restored the integral functions of the Noventa Cannon, and spent a cluster shell into the populated districts of the city. My strike team is defusing the installation, so your assist teams should be safe from another incident. The runway is damaged, and I've received reports of local militias taking advantage of the situation. You are of course welcome to any of our electronic intelligence satellites and overhead photos. Our low orbit photo lab is passing over in fifty-one minutes, so you'll have great high-resolution shots- or better yet- just turn on the Earth Sphere news."  
Erickson concealed himself to share a few words to an aid.

"Yes, Ma'am, we're rolling out. Erickson out." Une reclined and exhaled.

(To herself) "What I would do just for the Purgatory of BS-ing junior department heads like him, but I can't put off the man himself," (more audibly) "oh Dispatcher, you get to press the big red button now." She complied.

"Mister President, your worst-case from the morning briefing came true; we have mass casualties in Somalia."  
Oh boy.

"It, you were actually tackling it this time, so how on God's green Earth did you allow that #ing D cannon to blow it's freaking lid this time?"  
Hmm, he mixed his two F words, must be trying to quit.

"I'll try to explain, sir. We operated an attack plane over the cannon, so the terrorists would have to switch out their most dangerous ordinance in order to shoot down the plane-"

"I think I get it, go on."

"Well it worked, and the cannon fired an anti aircraft shell into the Indian Ocean, then Rashid fired his rockets for the kill. For whatever reason, he failed, and the cannon fired two more shells of the same variety. One at the fighter plane as it ran for the airport, and one at the beach, where Rashid's artillery piece was located. He, by the way, can't be contacted."  
They both paused, then the President addressed his Director.

"You did good, Kid, especially the brave pilot and gunner. I understand those shells could have been binary nerve gas into Brussels and Bremen, had they neglected their jobs," he laughed, "but the people will decide someone in charge deserves more than one anus for a mess of this proportion, and my rival faction will be more-than-willing to tear me a few. Can I count on you to entertain the rabble on a tireless PA circuit?"  
Nuts! She swallowed the same words he'd used, but said:

"You can count on me to smooth this out, Sir."

"Good Girl." He cut the connection, only dangling the dreaded hook.

"(Sigh I need sedated. I could use a cocktail of drugs right now."


	13. Indecent Proposal

A very fast, very expensive, supersonic sub orbital personal space plane jetted the young Preventer couple from that understaffed, under competent, canal base, run by the underclass of the bloated former Alliance Noncommissioned Officer Corp. Some of the more stupid, yet still ambitious, of the uniformed roughnecks ogled over the presence of Zechs and Noin, and therefore tried to demonstrate how tough they could be, at the severe expense of Heorot Manuela. Imagine, those toughs pushing around Manuela, as if 'he's' the thug! Well, Zechs Merquise made sure to remember those names.

'_It's Randle, with one el, and it's Matthews, with two tees_.' Got it, Davis Randle, and Andrew Matthews, serial numbers 251191, and 119235, both light skinned, brown eyes, one has brown hair, and the other's is closer to red.

"Those punks can wait, Babe, I have them written up right here," assured the Count, tilting his laptop her way, "I just mailed it in where somebody had better take action on it. I set the priority high, so things had better happen with it."  
He relaxed, she put down her phone.

'_That was simple, but how many times can I "stay on top of things," before she figures out I'm concealing something?_'  
He visibly registered that he'd been restraining her from phoning, and gently started caressing that hand.

'_Smooth, but is she starting to perceive me as too controlling? Guess I must throw out my trump now_.'  
He deftly palmed a black box from his sole handbag and paraded it before Noin.

'_Treize, if you're upstairs, please explain to the big guy that I'm doing what's best here, but I still can't believe I'm using this very act as a decoy_!'

"In the past few years, it has been my observation that we've both changed jobs many times, and yet, we have perpetually been close coworkers this whole time. At one of these exotic locations, Antarctica, Mars maybe, I started thinking that odd coincidence meant something," he opened the case, displaying a massive, finely cut, piece of jewelry, "This is an old hydrocarbon that churned away deep inside Jupiter. Over eons, the intense pressures in the planet hardened it into an unbreakable crystal. A very long time ago, a comet called Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with the planet and kicked this material out, where Europa captured it in its gravity well. The diamond orbited for a while, then fell deep into the icy surface. This hardy little rock has the integrity to withstand the focusing power needed for a planet-destroying laser, but when I first saw it, I only thought about how pretty it would look on you," his face burned crimson.

"I want to wed you, miss. Do you want to wed me?"

'_She's crying. Don't feel guilt, Idiot, this is what this whole vacation was about. My intentions are pure; I just have to make some slight concessions to reality. I shouldn't have to rationalize this at all. All proposals, from the beginning of this custom, have been carefully calculated seductions masterfully played out by males. We cunningly orchestrate this emotional manipulation, and the womenfolk have their revenge by planning the wedding. I just hope she's going traditional_.'

"(Sniffle) Zechs, the band is made of Gundanium. Absolutely, I'll be your bride, but Gundanium is a synthetic metal, and synthetics are traditionally considered tacky," she laughed jestingly, "I'd like a June ceremony, a reasonably short distance from work, so everyone can come, maybe Flanders. The outdoors should be perfect in June."

Perfect, alright, Zechs envisioned a blooming field as flat as Kansas, full of sun. Since A.D 1914-1918, A.D 1939-1945, and AC 195, those fields have swallowed a lot of raw compost, and now display some of the most ripened foliage in the Earth Sphere.  
But who cares about ancient killing fields, his lips are brushing against those of his thrilling companion!

**_Somalia_**

Abdul relayed Trowa's message to Nichol, Sally, Dorothy, and Townsend, letting them here about the situation in his own words. Sally tapped Miss Darlian on the shoulder.

"Um, Releana, Nichol and I'll have to go back out. Will you please fill in for me here?" Releana hesitated, taken aback.

"Why sure, I'll do whatever you need, Ms. Poe," she said unsurely, at a loss.

"Thanks, kid, I'll be back soon."

**_Minutes later_**

The quartet suited up in the Lounge Site while getting an ear full from the holographic Duo Maxwell.  
He told them to acquire the amphibious six-wheeler in the garage, and to keep the throttle open the whole time. He led them through his secret passage and hit the garage lights.

"Here you go. I took the liberty of warming up the engine for you. Tally ho!" "Thank you, Duo, and Godspeed with this establishment," Sally welcomed, "Mr. Nichol, take us into the fight at all possible speed!" Sally sat at the gunner's station, and Dorothy sat behind the driver, probably the safest seating. Townsend took the front passenger seat. The garage door ascended automatically, and the gate slid open. One guard in a blue shirt and tie saluted as they passed. Nichol returned the gesture, and hit the high beams only after passing them.

"Preventer Water, as the senior medical officer on the expedition, you must be the one we must drop off to administer aid to Rashid. His condition is unknown, but the humane thing to do is to check on him," Nichol shouted over the engine noise.

"I concur. Dorothy, please take my gun once we arrive at the op point." "I will, Sally."

"Then it's settled," the doctor confirmed. Minutes later, they reached the sight. Sally passed a spotlight over the pockmarked beach, but didn't cast her light on any wounded men.

"I see a body!" Count Townsend pointed, and Sally's light followed his finger.

"Alright, slow down, Nichol," he did, and Sally lugged her medical bag over to Rashid.

"Rashid, can you hear me?" She rolled his massive bulk over, and his eyes opened.

"I'm not critical, Sally. I'm not bleeding anywhere, but the cannon gave me a concussion- hurts like a mother- and contusions from head to toe."  
Sally tried to comfort him.

"I'm glad you're okay. Just let me go through a routine checkup, then we'll focus on taking you to a more comfortable place."  
True to his word, Rashid had no bleeding. She feared his spleen was ruptured, but she found no sign of him bleeding out.

"You're good." She whipped out her phone, and dialed Maxwell House.

"Security, this is Preventer Water. The beach is no longer hot. I need a car to extract a patient. No, his condition isn't critical, but I'm telling you, the beach isn't hot, so a pickup shouldn't be all that difficult. Thank you, I'm at Rashid's op point, right on it. Preventer Water out."

**_Noventa Cannon Complex_**

Flames above Mogadishu licked the horizon from Trowa's perspective as he peered through the open hanger, and wispy clouds absorbed the pale moonshine. Did these two phenomena of the fire raging in some neighborhoods of the city cancel out its effect on ambient lighting?

Perhaps, but he only cared that more light would help him stalk out armed complex personnel. His starlight scope was the only pair of NVGs still working within the taskforce, and their green glow came in dim and opaque.

'_Every soldier signs up knowing that he'll have to put himself in harms way at some point, but isn't this just a little extreme_?' He pondered at the wisdom of jumping into the hanger.  
His SMG (submachine gun) had none of the fancy bells-and-whistles of the 'land warrior' program, so he couldn't just probe around with a camera- mounted gun and find the enemy, their shoestring budget disallows the use of such extravagances, so safe options ran thin.

He hesitated a few beats, steeled himself, then heard the open throttle of an invading vehicle climb the service road.  
Green tracers lanced from the hanger on Trowa's right, and Quatre swept wide around the corner for a double-tap shot.

"Got him! Go!" Duo carted Hilde behind Quatre, and Trowa followed, carting WuFei. They raced toward the entrance as Quatre crab-walked with them, keeping his SMG at the ready.  
A big vehicle-mounted chain gun barraged a wide arc that included the old observation tower. Return fire trickled in comparison, and didn't impede the six-wheeler backing into the hanger.

"Zero Three calling Water, Zero Three, calling Water, we're in the hanger, and I can see you. I repeat, we see you, and we're here with you. We're merging with your group. Do you read?"

"Zero Three, this is Nichol. Water is attending the wounded at the Rashid op point. I acknowledge that you're joining us. You have four wounded, correct?"

"Correct. I'm staying to complete the mission. Abduls details are sketchy; who's coming with me?"

"We can stop using the radio now, you're right in front of me." Trowa grimaced, and jostled WuFei into a seat.

"Dorothy and I'll join you, and Townsend will drive the Amphib out. Hey Quatre! Can you man the machine gun? Good, now get your butts out of here!" Nichol and Dorothy dismounted, and gestured thumbs up to the departing amphibious crew.

"Do you understand that our options dectate my plan for taking down the auxiliary firing station? They have one entrance, and every place but one duct is clamped up tighter than a spy at confession. The front door is a killer, and locked up with a vault door anyway. The walls, just like the rest of the compound, are thick granite, and there's another option, entering from the submarine pen. The duct is open for one, so I'll crawl through that space, as I said I would earlier. Where will you guys be for the takedown?"  
Nichol spoke up.

"A front door insertion. The locking mechanism is made of steel, and is vulnerable to the torpex limpet mine we're carrying. It's a shame you weren't better briefed on the plan, Trowa, but the security measure was necessary. These guys handle the intelligence angle better than most world- peace arsonists. Anyway, once the locking mechanism is broken, we can just give the door a good tug, and it'll swing open."  
They split apart, content with their roles. But as they split apart, a sudden jolt added urgency to their mission.

**_Preventer Central Office Building_**

"Oh Lord, it fired again!" Une swiveled her head to the television, and saw the flash. A beam of light climbed high into the air, and the helicopter camera tried to follow the comet head.

"Where's it going?" Said one.

"It's got to be us, we're dead!" Une tried to take command of the situation.

"Bring up the ballistic tracking screen up, pronto!" Someone did so, and the track wasn't for Luxemburg, but for...

"Patch me through to our space station, and tell it to take an evasive turn!" The dispatcher opened a line to the observation station.

"Station, the cannon fired at you. Climb into a higher orbit, quickly!"

"Roger!" The station kicked up to full thrust, but the cannon's deadly buckshot cast a wide net, and nothing could be done.

"We lost the feed, Madam."

**_Noventa Cannon Complex_**

"Zero Three here, I'm in position," Trowa radioed from his inverted op point, hanging upside down in the air duct. He's seen one patrol pass underneath him, and he's already had to disassemble several spike strips meant to rip-up trespassers.

"Nichol here, acknowledged. We've also reached our point, and have no Nemo Charlie (first letters from Noventa, the second for Cannon, NC) in sight. Water's returning with Townie, ETA (estimated time of arrival) under eight minutes. Figure we'll clear the room?"  
Yes, but only if we keep the op tempo.

"Cut the chatter and go!" Nichol pasted the torpex charge to the lock, and Dorothy stared down her gun barrel down the hall. Nichol yanked the fuse, a lanyard, and the exothermic chemical reaction ate a hole in the thick door. Then he yanked the door itself, and Trowa's grenades detonated while it still protected Dorothy. So when the door cleared, she hosed down an already wounded and conflicted path.

"I'm letting it fly... my line-of-sight is clear. Okay, Trowa, toss your smokes. Nichol, I need some lead laid down, so get your head up!"  
Nichol felled a blind clip around the corner, and Dorothy stepped up to take more careful aim.

"Blind shooting doesn't really work," she shouted from her mask, orating, "this can be a difficult subject, but that is how the untrained do it, and the compiled evidence," she continued, killing throughout her discourse, "reveal that green soldiers make up nearly forty percent of the casualties in combat. I should add that noncombatants make up fully sixty percent. What does that tell you about being on top of things?"  
Nichol pitched grenades, and Dorothy continued her marksmanship.

"That's the stuff, combined arms, sometimes referred to as '_overwhelming force_.' The combination of suppression over a wide area with a precise accompaniment is the favored method of winning close-quarter engagements. Now all we need is a second team to storm in and shake the trees, or to put it another way, turn over all the stones until we're sure no one is still hanging on to a defensive position. Am I bugging you? Our second team's ETA is coming fast. Why'd the military acronym specialists settle on a non-word, anyway? Did they not see that 'estimated arrival time' is better? I'll use it in a sentence: we EAT in an hour. Isn't that so much better?"

The sedatives slowed the NC (remember the Nemo Charlie lecture?) force to lethargy, the CS tear gas obscured their vision, the grenades flushed out blood with metal fragments, and hollow-point bullets scooped out human matter, leaving wide exit wounds to bleed out. The NC reply was staccato and uneven.

"Trowa, you get out of there?" She would have said more, but Trowa descended from the vent, collapsing, but he rapidly rolled to his feet.

"Man, that hurt!"


	14. Havana Beach Bazaar

Hello readers! I just want to tell you, I wrote the first song, but Michael Stipe really did write the second one. My Napoleon quote really is a rephrased Napoleon quote, and I'm hoping most of you recognize the prayers of Bishop Douglas as prayers that date back to the Early Christian Church. Summer's approaching, and I still hope reviews will come before autumn. This chapter is much larger than my past few, and contains less action than normal, but I hope it isn't boring. If I do have any readers, they must be wondering when Heero will show up. I promise you I'll reveal him from hiding. You may think this is almost wrapped up, but you have no idea.  
Typewriter King  
May 18, 2004

I don't own the rights to Gundam Wing, Early Christian Church prayers, Napoleon, or songs published by members of REM. I share knowledge of these things to better tell a non-profit story that practically no one is ever going to read anyway. The mobile-suit pledge is based on the American Soldier Creed. I used the creed as a reference necessary to add realism to the tale. It is also a form of unabashed flattery.

**_Havana Beach Bazaar, Cuba_**

All of Zechs' orchestrated elements came into play in perfect synchronicity, with an open-air served table ready, candle lit, with a waitress to seat them, and an electric folk band accompanying, performing an off-beat Southern bar song that leaves one wondering whether to laugh or cry: The officer chased crime a little late Unwound in a tavern that same date Wife Claudia called 'bout their son, Jake Impaled himself by garden rake He rushed off past four rounds of beer

Uncertainly the car he steered Reflexes shot, he could not veer A family van he dinged the rear Air bags deployed - shielded cargo dear But passenger husband was thrown clear Driver wife, neck whip lashed severe Shield stripped, dishonored, crowd Heckles a jeer. "Protect and Serve" chose not to hear. Salvation! A county road his instinct told Abandoned woman! "This headache- I'll die! It isn't fun." Without a care, he chose to run The sole witness; his career my hands now hold.

The electric organ and guitar wrapped up the song with the hopping bass as Noin emptied her wine flute of her nascent regurgitated contents. She applauded, and they kicked straight into a song written by Michael Stipe a long time ago:

"STAR 69!

you don't have to take the bar exam to see  
what you've done is ignoramus 103  
what've I got to hang my hat on  
you don't have a pot to pee in  
all this just to be your friend  
I was there until the end.

extortion and arson, petty larceny  
I know you called - I know you called - I know you called -  
I know you called - I know you called - I know you hung up my line  
star 69  
I know all about the warehouse fire  
I know squirrelys didn't chew the wires  
3 people have my number  
the other 2 were with me.  
I don't like to tell-tell but I'm not your patsy.  
this time you have gone too far with me.  
I know you called - I know you called - I know you called -  
I know you called - I know you called - I know you hung up my line  
star 69  
why'd you put your quarter down on me?  
this reads like some dork inside edition hard copy.  
I can't be your character witness  
I can't be your alibi  
doorbell rings it's the FBI  
we learned spy vs. spy  
you my friend, are guilty as can be.  
I know you called - I know you called - I know you called -  
I know you called - I know you called - I know you hung up my line  
I know you called - I know you called - I know you called -  
I know you called - I know you called - I can't be your alibi  
star 69!"

The waitress returned to refill Noin's flute, and Zechs took the opportunity to gulp down his.

"Gracias! That was a song by that 'Happy shiny' band con el rapid eye movement," said the singer, in less than fluent English, meaning REM, "The first song is on our record,

'_Occupation Poetica_."'

'_I didn't pay you to talk, I paid you to sing_,' thought Zechs, vexed. He picked a pastry out of an attractive basket of dinner rolls, and critiqued the freshness. Steam wafted from the exposed area, and he smelled the sweet odor of baked grains.

"This is nice," he pronounced, looking over at Noin's face, "what do you think of your pita?"  
She smiled mock-bemusedly.

"I've never known you to make small-talk, my Count," she made an exaggerated survey of her bread, "this reminds me a lot of the meals I had growing up in Italy; could this seasoning be pesto? I think I taste some wild truffles from Lombardy, some squid, well-aged string cheese," she squinted, tasting, "and very young lamb. The sauce is prepared from minced sweet golden Andean tomatoes, much like those being the presumed first to appear in Italian Gastronomy."

The band slowly climbed into a metal jam session, and the players worked hard to make their instruments talk. The keyboardist simply relied on his organ, and the guitarist simply relied on feedback, and the drummer just hammered away, and the bassist followed along. The vocalist blew into a harmonica, and the drummer adjusted into hitting his hats repetitively. Slowly, the keyboardist played a simple riff, and added to it every time. The guitarist played a loud '_WAH_' every few seconds, and the rhythm section tightened up. Soon the keyboardist played a full-blown rag, and the vocalist, with his harmonica, was the only contributor to the occult sound. The drummer lightly tapped some wind chimes with one stick, and hit a snare with the other.

The same waitress returned to Zechs' side and set two baskets before him, one with a pair of pocket pizzas, and the other with a couple slices of whole wheat Texas toast, and a halved slice of cinnamon toast on white. She then emptied the wine bottle in the couple's flutes.

"Will that be all, Sir, Madam?" Zechs, nonchalant, said everything was fine, Noin seconded, and she parted company.  
The Count glared into the horizon, witnessing a deep azure color flood out the sky. Hmm.

"Hold on, Ma'am, do you have anything resembling bird seed in stock; perhaps dried grits?"  
She abandoned her route, turned, nestled her crooked index finger below her lower lip.

"Eh, hmm, sure, I'll fetch a satchel of gourmet cracker crumbs. Hold on." As he anticipated, he spied some early birds settle in a vacant park beside the beach.

"I remember one portion of Specials training that called for us to assist a friendly tribe in killing the waning crescent of the Moon, so a nascent Moon could rise to take it's place. Surely enough, the next night, no Moon would show up, then another night would pass, and a new crescent would wax into view," said Zechs, watching the sunrise, "I suspect we never tried the same with the sun because there was no noticeable decline over time. Oz also waned. Anne Une pushed extremely hard to push us from the organization, and the last straw was Siberia, at least for me. Soon forces inside branded us outlaws, then even Treize and Une exited, to be followed by a whole new splinter group. It declined to the point of feeding on itself with battles in Luxemburg and the Sanc Kingdom, pushing to undo what we'd been doing. Uncanny how an entire organization can have suicidal tendencies, when the right catalyst enters the mix." He stared the sea, as if to spy at neutrinos brushing the bottom.

"But Noin, the same material rises in the place of the old crescent; the same players make up the new order, but we all claim to be an original construct. We sat in with the Alliance, the next cycle, and we played on different teams during the transition, nevertheless, we're together policing the Earth Sphere together under the same boss as before. Does the majority really accept this, just because we brought them a relative peace?"  
Noin finished breakfast, and swilled her flute contents down her throat.

"You overestimate our importance, Lover. We were allowed back as the simple grunts within the greater bureaucracy. We just perform a series of functions better than anyone else, and the powers that be loosen the leash only when dangers are clear to them," she disarmed his brooding with a high wattage smile, "like the Irish cops of a previous era. We keep the order in the gutter, and the Anglos in charge muse all day over how best to spend the Peon's tax money."  
Zechs chuckled.

"Your analytical skills are acute, woman," he complimented, tossing a toast crumb at a blue-gray pigeon. Its beak pecked through it, then tried again. They watched it eat.

"Here you go, Sir," the waitress handed him the brown rice paper, and Zechs accepted, and asked for his bill.

"Thank you, Mr. Zechs." The couple discontinued their stay at the open-air café and strolled past the placid morning street for the more secluded park. The Count dribbled a trail of gourmet crumbs in a well-dispersed inviting wake, and assiduously tweaked his ears for the ruffled audio energy of descending wings. The early flock's customary welcoming swoop didn't disappoint.

"We had three flutes of wine each, right? So, if I'm guessing your weight correctly, you're legally intoxicated and I'm not quite, Lady," Zechs chuckled, "so let's take a break at this bench and throw food at the birds before heading into the surf." They staggered to the bench, then resumed seeding the earth for the benefit of some needy birds.

Behind them, unseen, older generously proportioned civilians dole out easily dispensed items to Havana's non-vacationing early morning jostle as they scramble for work. Many of these venders specialized in their services, while many more diversified into selling whatever they had the opportunity to earn a living from. Numerous venders erected shops of sophisticated workmanship, with commendable grandiosity, whilst still others kept more leisurely built shops. Street performers drew the attention of passersby, sometimes receiving token pay from those loaded down with marginal yet burdensome metallic hard currency.

After the mobile-suit pilots sat, a gradually increasing flow of vacationers walked the beach and sat in park benches.  
Some even began surfing before Zechs decided they weren't too inebriated to walk across the following tide. He broadcasted a stealthy chortle.

"The bag's been empty a long time now, so what do you say we break for the hotel and wash up?"  
Noin loosened her clinch on him.

"I'll second that. I haven't cleaned up since we left the CVA Camp yesterday," she sounded reserved, "so let's beat down the trail."  
Zechs made note of the wind conditions.

"What are your feelings about flying kites?" She vibrantly smiled.

"I feel like a kite right now!" 'Victory!' The Gundam statesman thought, as they raced across white sand for the sleeping establishment.

**_Maxwell House, Mogadishu, Somalia_**

"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets," Bishop Douglas finished a prayer he'd recited many times since childhood, under several variations, inside Maxwell House's small antiseptic hospital.

He'd found that soldiers in particular are fond of this prayer, so he took special care to address the entire hospital room. He and the medical staff noted a reassuring improvement in vital signs, and a staff nurse escorted the bishop to the intensive care unit, so he could speak to Marquee Wayridge. They'd had time to encase him in a full body case, and some bracing. An "iron" lung breathed life into him, red tubes circulated his blood, a dialysis machine filtered for him, they already inserted a feeding tube, and a U-239 battery pack powered a temporary mechanical heart.

A good first aid intravenous formula Should consist of sodium chloride, 3.5 grams; sodium bicarbonate, 2.5 grams; potassium chloride, 1.5 grams; glucose 20 grams (or sucrose 40 grams); and clean water up to one liter. The glucose assists absorption of the sodium and vice versa, and as they are absorbed, water is absorbed with them. The well-stocked staff kept a cornucopia of fluid bags on his IV tree, and the doctors held a high drip rate for him. His anesthetic was topically sprayed from a nozzle regularly, and it contained no sedatives. Douglas approached with pleasantries.

"Hello, Marquee Wayridge, I'm Bishop Douglas. I hope you remember the occasions where we have met in the past. We usually met under pleasant circumstances, when we rallied under humanitarian causes. Why don't we say something to the man upstairs together? Let's try an easy one. What do you say?" As if the patrician had replied, the holy man lead a prayer.

"Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be your Name, Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in Heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our senses we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, And the glory are yours Now and forever. Amen." A surgeon excused Douglas.

"Thank you, Reverend, so nice that you could lend a hand." He patted the medico's shoulder paternally.

"It was a pleasure, my brother; doing God's work is always a great pleasure," he said sincerely, as he excused himself, stalking others to comfort.

**_Noventa Cannon Complex_**

Things looked over in the auxiliary command station. Trowa successfully planted explosives that flushed out remaining resistance, and Sally returned with Count Townsend.  
Resistance is down to a berserk machine gunner firing from deep inside the escape entrance to the submarine pen. Trowa has expended every bandolier of explosives, yet somebody still held on.

All could and did approach the entrance safely, however, and everyone got a chance to throw grenades and satchel charges, accompanied by a friend to blindly hose a clip around the corner.

"I know what the Catalonians are known for, but I think I'll play against type," Dorothy shouted, emptying her gun.

"Yeah, well, I'm going to step back and make a small target, and take a careful aim at him, while you guys still have the ammunition to grind him down," answered Trowa, before he sprinted to the back of the room.  
Here goes.

The Noventa Cannon had unquestionably been lost. A Preventer assault team now occupies all relevant stations, and is now in the process of sweeping away the peripheral niches still in Conglomerate control. Commodore Norris is taking out the fleet, and Kale Sandstone is spearheading the rearguard operation with a three-barreled mini gun from behind a well-prepared sandbag pillbox. He has a thick transparent Lexan shield guarding his face from bullets and shrapnel, and a bipod stand for his gun. The gun also has a water hose supplying coolant, so he can sustain a high volume of fire for the duration of the fight.

"I am a Mobile-suit pilot. I am a member of the Allied Forces of the Earth Sphere Alliance- a protector of the great Earth Sphere Alliance. Because I am proud of the Mobile-suit I pilot, I will always act in ways creditable to the elite service and the people I'm sworn to protect. I take pride in my unit. I will do my best to make it the finest of all. I will be loyal to my superiors under our creed. I will faithfully see orders followed to completion. As a Military pilot, I recognize that I'm preserving an honorable tradition- that I am the vanguard of civilization and peace. Whatever the situation, I will never taint my honorable profession and service, and will maintain the standards the Alliance are founded on. I will go beyond the call of duty to keep my peers in line with the values of this organization. I am proud of the service I have joined, and I'll always live up to the ideal of my service, for I am an Alliance pilot."

He recited the pledge he'd learned long ago as an Earth Sphere Alliance mobile-suit pilot. These fiends have come to challenge his righteous stuff, but they didn't count on just how bright that stuff could glow. They didn't count on how well he could prepare a defensive position, but now they're starting to learn.

Like giving a humiliating kick in the crotch, Kale peppers their Tupperware sub guns, which they hold out like trout for a trained dolphin. Such a pansy way to fire a gun, Kale frowns on it. He counted at least four shattered firearms, all Oz assault weapons.

He changes tactics, and fire-hoses up and down the extreme edges of the corners where the unrighteous enemy hides. Stone chips peel away or fragment more violently.

The cannon is lost to these unrighteous bugs! Cockroaches, the whole lot of them; except that one. He's standing off a long distance for even a rifle shot, but even so, he's successfully nursed some SMG rounds off Kale's lexan faceplate. The round impacts cause an irritating distraction, and he should see that, yet still he remains cool, calm and collected, regularly depressing individual rounds across different points of the bulletproof transparent screen.

Kale reluctantly realizes that this guy, at least, has better stuff circulating through him. The shield's pockmarks stare directly at his vitals, and newer abrasions and scars indicate that this guy is actively probing for a weak place in the shield's integrity.

No, he's not better, because his dirty tricks will never truly give him the advantage. He uses drones, hackers, and overpowering rockets, but he's still right there, vulnerable to the righteous might of Kale's instrument.

He angrily showers the distance, spinning his gat at its highest rotation rate. He keeps it coming, landing short, correcting closer to the roof. The lithe dark form shuffles, and yet stays in view. His shots are wilder now, also more frequent. He's panicked, dodging, his impacts leaving less relevance. He falls. Kale's got him! That guy's still aiming! Sandstone perceived a muzzle flash, then the Jurassic shriek of steel on steel. Lying prone, that guy clones the feat. Kale spies on his tool, eyes the carbon-steel disk tying the barrel-bundle together. He's punctured it!

A micro-fire draws attention; he hit it a third time, and the hole gapes wider. To some astonishment, he discovers he'd never released the trigger.

Eyes up- he's scrambling away! "Filthy swine! You don't have the grit to see this through..." his bullets pursue the pig, a hair's width away, the ashen barrels show more fury... "my feet are all wet... oh sh-" The tri-barreled weapon parts broadly, taking the shape of a cluster of pinwheels. Trapped heat escapes, igniting exposed air, and Kale crashes into the stonewall, followed by his gun. "Clever, you breached my water hose early in the fight, then sacrificed yourself just to keep me firing throughout. I complement you, Preventer." He sank into a red pool, but fought that fate. The pilot battled to the last, rolling right down the stares, his only line of retreat. "Evacuate to the second defense line, and make sure to blow these mines at the right time," he told his comrades, who carried him away in their arms. "Roger."

Despite the startling setback, Chester Norris embraces the hope that his arsenal at this time can still extract a victory of sorts despite it all. Kale is leading a rearguard action, giving the Captain time to address his naval forces. He's not the paradigm of the perfect public speaker, but by rephrasing Napoleon Bonaparte a smidge, maybe he can give his forces a shot in the arm.

"Soldiers, you are naked, badly fed...Rich provinces and great towns will be in your power, and in them you will find honor, glory, and wealth. Soldiers of Africa, will you be wanting in courage and steadfastness?" Good.

"Even through misery, no! Why? These men have stolen the fruits of our sweat and blood, and that is a torture surpassing all other conditions! For now, our forces are to re deploy for the rendezvous point for Operation Spice Trade, where we will move forward with our razing of Diego Suarez, the UN harbor at the tip of Madagascar. Our mission hasn't changed. With Diego gone, and the canals closed, the UN will be slow to forestall further operations!"

**_A few minutes later_**

The manufacturers made the pen's steel hanger doors every bit as thick as canal locks, so when those heavy doors parted, the Preventer's passive sonar net just couldn't miss it, and when they didn't miss it, the crew snapped to the proper defense posture.

A number of large black cylinders were privileged to network information, and booted up more electrical systems once it knew just what had been sniffed out.  
They spun up their screws and vented out their compressed air, their gas propulsion. That propulsive burp, besides kicking in a well-know Newtonian principal, also boosted the screws much more, and brought the "fish" fully up to speed.

Their targets, aquatic mobile-suits of the 'Pieces' and 'Cancer' varieties, were trapped in the pickle military men and traffic reporters like to call a "bottleneck," a narrow artery without much maneuvering space: the suits couldn't dodge, they could only hope to intercept the incoming ordinance.

Sad for those pilots, these incoming mines came with a special option, something tankers call "reactive armor," a little explosive canister with a proximity fuse, first seen in the 1982 war between Israel and Syria. It works as a "missile defense shield" for a single vehicle, shooting down an incoming missile like a CIWS battery loaded with buckshot.

The scheme cleared many swaths in the sea, and triggered incoming torpedoes into a mass chain-reaction, and the mines steeply climbed onto suit hulls, first jarring them with concussive kinetic force, and ramming shaped charges forward. These brave kamikazes completed their mission, beating fierce waves against a superior naval force.

Though their numbers ran in the single digits, the stunning success of these few advanced mines tore down what the mere words of the Commodore had built up. More mines, simpler stationary contact and magnetic mines, rose to take their place.

Those watching from Luxemburg smiled, for elements of the harassed fleet panicked ahead into the minefield, detonating more charges. Yet, despite another troubling setback- a cliché all leaders cringed at expressing- the indomitable Commodore regrouped his ranks one last time, and broke out into blue water.


	15. Locus of Authority

Columbian Neighborhood  
  
Manuela's overnight capture has really stirred the hornet's nest even as far as one perfect little Medellín neighborhood. The sidewalks held together and trash pickups occurred at dawn every day. Police patrolled by to keep the peace and keep men like Bartista from flaunting their dirt, and the loudest sounds during the average day were church bells and playing children.  
Underneath it, however, Heero Yuy sensed tension bleed from the men and women as they glared from their shaded stoops. Heero didn't exactly standout as a threat, either. He dressed casually, as usual, and carried nothing but a foam football with peculiar wings jutting out. He patted it around like a hot potato, and swiveled his head around, as if looking for kids to play with.  
He stopped at a corner approximately a football field away from the safe house Bartista's brainy business school graduate slept over at.  
Heero had a name and a thorough background. The guy's not Columbian at all and actually grew up as a member of a Texican crime family. He'd made good at Baylor and had successfully funneled the family's assets into something more respectable. As an intern, he'd even successfully formulated Governor Murphy's stunning presidential election of North America. Now he's doing the same cerebral work to tie his family in with Bartista, and when a soldier of Manuela's caliber disappears, the brains can only figure that other men of talent may be picked up, too. Here goes. Heero the stalker draws his arm back, steps his lead leg forward, balancing most of his weight on the back, shifts the opposite direction, and lobs the plaything far and away. It spirals upward to its pinnacle, then declines on terminal guidance. "Vamanos!" An alert senior bodyguard in shades sees it coming, and orders the others to scram. He sees that Heero's pass had a perfect bead on the big black Cadillac and he jumped into the driver's seat, opened the sunroof, leaped out, slapped shut the door.  
Heero watched none of this however, instead he distanced himself from the scene, running a block and ducking into a blind ally. He heard the explosion, however, and turned his head as people are expected to do.  
The youth then proceeded to dart under a clothesline weighted down by whites, then took a walk to a parking lot. From there he keyed open a two-door Chevrolet, the most low-end on the market. Twenty-years old, at that. He turned over the ignition, and drove for the slum rent house he kept.  
  
Indian Ocean  
  
Abdul nearly fainted upon hearing the news that the cannon had disabled his surveillance assets in orbit, but he got over it and dispatched Afmad and Auda aloft from Cyprus in a pair of turboprop maritime reconnaissance planes, so he'd have something more than his obsolescent hydrophone network to work with.  
Their superior speed put them in the Indian Ocean fast enough to give hope of catching the fleet.  
"Listen, you oddballs, Trowa had the foresight of using the cannon to hammer them while they exited the shallow water along the coast, and it knocked some bolts loose on their hardware. Consequently, I heard transient sounds from their vessels for a few (minutes) before they tightened up. I have a fresh bearing southeast from Somalia. They were heading into blue water at flank speed with no signs of changing their bearing. Since then, they cut speed and I lost contact."  
From his terminal inside a recon plane cabin, Afmad scratched his beard thoughtfully.  
"Thanks, Abdul, I just checked out your findings a couple knots ahead of your plotting with the neutering radar at full blast, and found a diving Cancer, turning starboard. You see that?"  
In Luxemburg, Abdul lifted his sunglasses, and peered at the networked display.  
"I see your contact, and confirmed it by catching a 'knuckle' in the water there." Afmad: "I narrowed the beam to a single degree, so I could sustain intensity. Still holding course."  
Abdul saw it.  
"Yeah, I'm hearing some bubbles there. Still trying to maintain contact, but I think we'll have him soon."  
Afmad's voltage drained, but Auda accepted the handoff, and tracked the thin ocean swell.  
"My batteries will recharge in time to scratch your back," Afmad chirped, "The cancer's leveling off."  
"Okay, guys, I've established a continuous contact," Abdul alerted, "so go ahead and depth charge this sucker!"  
"Affirmative, buddy, we're bombing our best solution. Depth, 780 meters, heading, speed, and location fixed, and one star cluster depth charges away!"  
It was overkill, and it was costly, but the rapidly sinking canisters blanketed the cancer's vicinity.  
"Ha! He tried to run, but I here a breakup! You got him, Auda! Label him Master zero, the origin of our success. I picked up a general broadcast from an underwater telephone, and I'm listening to it again. The language is English, and it's addressing the fleet," Abdul narrated his work, excitedly.  
He played them the tape, and relayed its position.  
"Comrades, we're being shadowed by the UN! Silent running!" Auda rubbed his smooth chin.  
"Who was that?" Abdul thought it out.  
"It came from a towed array moving at eight knots. Seed some sonar buoys over there and see what you find."  
Auda's pilot complied, and Abdul heard the ripples reach out from the dropped buoys.  
Auda detected the cable detach from the carrier, and hurriedly calculated a solution.  
"I've got him!" He issued a hasty snapshot with a precious torpedo, and watched it chase the contact.  
The "fish" plunged through the surface and went active seconds before reaching the last known location.  
Luckily, the active acoustic energy rushed over the suspected contact, Master one.  
"I have a ping!" All three Maguanacs watched Master one, a Pisces mobile-suit, turned hard rudder port at all possible speed. It threw a diverse array of decoys around, and tried banking starboard after starting a power dive. No use.  
"He's broken up! Auda, that was risky; you didn't really know just what the origin of that sound was!" Auda rebutted.  
"It's a matter of deduction, my friend. If you were to ditch a towed array, rather than reel it in, would you release the array, and keep the useless cable?" 'Yes,' thought Abdul, 'because our budget is so tight, we can't even afford to replace those.'  
"Well, I'll take your silence to mean you're astounded by my logic!"  
  
Medellín, Columbia  
  
The bomb possibly weighed as little as a few full soda cans, and it exploded in an empty armored Cadillac. Yet, for all its tactical ineffectiveness, it scared the devil out of Mordred Bartista that morning. The ace bodyguard described it as an "antipersonnel smart bomb" because he'd seen it fly in and inter the luxury tank from the roof, adding that it looked like one of the target-marking flares dropped by warplanes.  
Well, too bad for him, he'd never heard of the line of foam footballs marketed by a Hall of Fame quarterback in the United States. That football actually came with stabilizing fins that gave it awesome flight characteristics and the appearance of a generic bomb.  
"He's unhurt, but after the attack, I couldn't convince him to stay in the country, and he says he'd like to leave the country. I convinced him that he'd be safer if we stowed him away for the next few days," said the guard, telephoning a contact to Bartista.  
"That's all I have to report, out." Twenty-one thousand miles overhead, an electronic intelligence "bird" sponged the wireless broadcast, and ferried a tape of the message down on a drop vehicle, where it stayed until a recovery crew in the canal zone scooped it up and E-mailed the contents to Heero's address. The message tape, the retrievers knew, came with a thermite charge in case anyone tried to read it before transliterating it into a one-time pad, an unbreakable code. The retrievers had to let another computer handle all the processes of handling the message without keeping a human in the loop. The computer in fact handled the task of breaking the one-time pad that guarded the booby-trapped recording, then it had to encode the message, and send it automatically, all without exposing any of the processes to a human, so it ran these tasks without revealing them with a printout through any human interface.  
Only through these secure means did Heero alone discover the whereabouts and mindset of the bodyguard when that guard spoke with his contact.  
'They think an air strike did it, but I wouldn't call in an air strike, because I think all our air groups are compromised,' he mused, sitting in his dark rent house, reading the text.  
'My next task is to drive to the next house where the call was made, and conduct another hit.'  
He deleted the message, and electronically mapped out a plan to the address where the call was made. His mapping software let him know that this was another private home, so Heero accepted the assumption that this was another safe house. If it weren't, no big deal, the owners would just have to find another house; the pilot would still have to torch it.  
  
He never parked a car used in a hit at his house, that would be a cardinal sin, so Heero walked a distance to the spiritual bookstore where he'd parked his white Chevrolet, and drove it on the route he'd outlined.  
He sped through a back street with little traffic, not caring what the cratered road did to his two-seater, and abandoned it at a recycling center just out of sight of the target.  
Heero kept trees between him and the house until he crossed the road, then he gracefully scaled the fence, and palmed his toothless key.  
Yuy rolled under the windows, and resurfaced at the backdoor, where he inserted the key. This toothless key came with a crank, and when one turns the crank, teeth will protrude from the naked rod one inserts in the lock. Eventually, the protruded teeth match up with the lock, and an intruder can open a door. That's how the Preventer skeleton key worked.  
'I'm in.' The house looked empty, but Heero cautiously scoped the house as he made the way to the central heater/cooling unit. He yanked open the service door, found the pilot light, wrenched it apart with his hand, and turned on the gas. He sniffed it, then walked to the back door, and lit a candle before sealing the door shut, and retracing his path.  
He broke into a sprint and ducked into his car just before the gas combusted inside that brick-and-mortar home.  
'Just another air strike,' his mind quipped. Heero Yuy felt satisfied this is what the bodyguard feared the most, carefully targeted explosives falling from nowhere.  
He didn't retrace his path home, instead, the Gundam pilot drove a circuitous route to a supermarket parking lot far from home, entered the store, exited through an 'employees only' service door, and ran to a boat garage, where he had a different car waiting. This one was a gray Dodge Neon, a sedan capable of seating four.  
This one he drove home.  
Preventers Central Office Building  
  
Pagan called Director Une with the updates. Everything is tied in through Abdul on this mission, so the communications, they hope, will bypass the mole. Pagan brings good tidings, saying that the strike force had successfully taken the Noventa Cannon, that forty-thousand lives were NOT lost, because most of the Mogadishu population stayed at Maxwell House, that the Maguanac Corp was actively pursuing the rogue navy, and that the humanitarian relief team had arrived at the airport.  
"Such a relief," she moaned, cradling her phone in the privacy of her office.  
"I've got to appear before the talking heads soon, and I could use some good news on my side. It's so hard to convince them that beating terrorism is TOUGH when you're outgunned! Those boys are really something," she confided, admiring a group picture of the fabulous five of 'Operation Meteor.'  
The picture came from the 'Peacemillion,' shot by Howard, sometime before the big fight. They congregated in a cafeteria on full alert, but still managed to enjoy themselves with the diversion of chess. Une noticed Heero and sighed despairingly.  
'He's never really with the others, even in this photo, and now none of us are sure where he is. Duo honestly expected him to at least show for Thanksgiving, but it seems he didn't care to see them.'  
They could contact him by mail and an answering service, but he only responds to their hails to say: "Bug off until you have something urgent."  
Une snapped out of her reverie, only so she could tackle even more troubling problems.  
  
Noventa Cannon Complex  
  
"That's it, I fired it at the flotilla and on the enemy-occupied turrets outside, so I think it's time to demolish this gun, unless we want to keep it," Trowa declared, adding, "I think we should bore a hole through it that would temporarily render it inoperable, because enemy forces could still overwhelm us here, and retake the cannon."  
Dorothy, Sally, and Nichol agreed, while Townsend abstained.  
"Okay, here goes." A thermite charge punched through the gun chamber, making use of the cannon hazardous to the user.  
"Well, I think that does it. Now I think we should get out of here and detoxify. Those animals were cruel and unusual to leave that saran gas bomb to explode on us- doubly to do that when they knew we had the protective suits to survive it. My only regret is having some skin exposed around my watch- it may never stop twitching!"  
The others seconded in unison, though they all know how much worse it would have been to have their wounded still on the island.  
By mutual assent, the five walked out together, and exchanged greetings with the disaster relief squad taking their place in the fortress.  
The squad came escorted with some extra-armed personnel and a negotiator, set on ending a standoff with the last remaining elements barricading the sub pen.  
"I'm only beginning to realize I missed the big feast, and how famished that left me. I didn't eat before taking on this mission you know."  
The team laughed, only to hear Trowa's protest that his sentiments weren't just humorous banter.  
"No, I really am hungry!"  
  
Medellín, Columbia  
  
Welcome to the fabulous life of Heero Yuy. After parking his hail- damaged discount Dodge Neon at another commercial parking lot, has again made his way home as a pedestrian. At the door, he found a scribbled note from his maid, and glanced at the message:  
  
"Hola, Boss! Don't be alarmed to find me inside, okay? (I) bashed all night, so don't be over-alarmed if you find me collapsed by the toilet and crashed on the bed. Don't worry, though, 'cause I'll only need a few hours of recharge before I'm up again to clean up. Your dinner's going to be late, though, 'cause I might still be passed out until late.  
  
-Tonya Lopez"  
  
'What a miserable girl,' He crumpled her letter, pensively regarding her writing, 'last time, her name was 'Tanya'- she doesn't even know her own name.' Even so, the maid made his work easier.  
He entered his home, and noted that Tanya/Tonya didn't dim the lighting before "crashing," as she puts it. His little home didn't section the kitchen/dining area from the living room, and when he looked left, where the duel eating area was, he found Tanya/Tonya semi awake, stirring a petite cup of coffee with Irish cream.  
"Hangover?" Her chin bobbed.  
"Si." Heero struggled to remember which name to use. That's right, when she's down, she's Tonya, and when she's up, she's Tanya, he thinks.  
"Well, glad your okay, uh, Tonya. I'm just going to read the news on my terminal for a while. I'll be home for dinner, too, no matter how late it is."  
She grinned, and sipped some java.  
"Cool, I'll make it sooner this time, but it'll have to be a TV dinner this time, and your home cooked goodies will be reheated leftovers. If you'll forgive me, I'll make up for it by baking a cake tomorrow."  
'That's fine,' he consented, but in principal couldn't let her off so easily.  
"It's Thanksgiving Day, Tonya, and you grew up in the Bronx, part of the old USA, so that holiday should mean more to you."  
She heightened her breathing, and Heero realized he'd crushed her a little too hard.  
'Amazing how THAT can give her a panic attack!' His only remedy was to treat her the way a parent treats a child during a night terror.  
"Relax, relax, relax, girl! I grew up in a colony in space, so the holiday doesn't even mean anything to me! So it's okay, take it easy."  
Now he felt uncomfortable. He felt her breathing deepen back to normal, and he accidentally whiffed her perfume, the same scent as Releana's.  
He let go, and turned away. He improved his own breathing, and collected himself.  
"Are you alright?" As distant as he tried to be, he still felt concern. She sipped more coffee.  
"Sorry, I skipped out on counseling, and Gawd I need it! I'll get an appointment after baking your cake."  
As chemically dependent as she was, the maid still kept most of her promises, Heero knew.  
"Sure, I'll make sure to remind you before I leave in the morning. By the way, are you staying tonight?"  
Tonya emptied her cup, and answered.  
"Yeah, I'm not fit to go out again tonight. Besides, this house needs the extra attention," her eyes perked up, "you said you'd be here no matter how late diner is, so you'll stay, too?"  
Heero grinned diffidently.  
"Um, yeah, at least until six A.M."  
"Cool."  
"Yeah, I'm going to read the news now." He expelled himself to his room and warmed up the terminal. After a few more menial tasks, the pilot had the world news.  
The top story centered around the scene at Maxwell House and Mogadishu. Names aren't given, but Cairo's syndicated columnists from 'The Saharan Sentinel' wrote that three "G-boys" (newsie term for Gundam pilot) lay wounded inside the Maxwell House infirmary, and another Preventer rests in a similar condition. Fifty thousand estimated Somalis are homeless, but luckily fewer than five thousand are estimated dead, "thanks to the skilled foresight of Director Une." Columnist: "The cannon now rests inoperable, and an Earth Sphere disaster relief force now guards over the demolished complex. Sources inside the Preventer Central Office building say a naval flotilla escaped into the safety of the Indian Ocean, but Lady Une scoffs at the claim.  
"A few ships tried to flee after our taskforce brilliantly dislodged them from their previous hideout, but you can safely count on our antisubmarine dragnet to sweep up the few remaining pieces of this conspiracy."  
Une's confidence is backed up by credible recordings of several successful sub hunts, and the President, Director Une's most vocal supporter, agrees that things are under control."  
None of the papers had much more substance than that, but Heero felt satisfied the team had done well.  
'Trowa pulled through on this one,' Heero declared. He decided the wounded Preventer must be Hilde Schbeiker, if they decided to take her along. He considers her more reckless than the other likely unit members. Sally Poe, for one, prefers assigning herself to peripheral roles, and everyone usually goes along with it, because she performed those things better than everyone else, save Heero, not present, and Trowa, better utilized on the frontline of a battle.  
Heero didn't know Trent Nichol very well, but his mind placed the former Oz officer on the island with or immediately behind the others.  
'He's probably cautious, but I just don't know him well enough.' Well, he'd had enough, and logged off.  
'Dinner's probably ready by now.'  
  
Bosphorus Strait, Istanbul, Turkey  
  
The Faith Sultan Mehmed Bridge, also called Bosphorus II, spans the Bosphorus Strait, the narrow waterway dividing Asia and Europe, and is named after Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed overcame a nearly unconquerable fortified metropolis right here during the Renaissance, though it took years in the making.  
Job Khalid, armed with all the modern know-how and historical reading of what Mehmed went through, jumped into the task of recreating most of the Young Turk's circumstances for victory in a compressed format.  
First condition, the Young Turk had to task his army with spanning a bridge across the divide, but Job had two bridges constructed long before he'd concocted his plan.  
Second, Mehmed spent time and a fortune paying a Greek named Urban to build siege guns on site. While Job had some problems of his own, his concrete siege morters were paved in Ankara and driven to the bridge on a flatbed tractor-trailer, the entire project taking the time and effort needed to make a city sewage pipe section. The ingenious 355mm mortar pieces boast the capacity to launch one-ton mortar bombs a number of miles, a capability rivaled by the best siege guns of any day.  
Third, Mehmed had the challenge of bypassing a naval boom that kept his fleet from entering the Bosphorus Strait. In Job's time situation, he turned the tables on the westerners in his own way, deploying a boat to mine the entrance, and stringing a thick torpedo net across the entire stretch. He used a pontoon bridge to solidify the barrier.  
Forth, Mehmed had a formidable Venetian/Byzantine force to deal with, but Job had negligible forces to do arms against. However, his own forces numbered few.  
  
Earlier  
  
Things look rough for his loosely allied compatriots, or so the news agencies are saying. Well, Khalid, together with his closest armed brethren, had this dream operation all fleshed out when the news broke. "Guys, are you hearing this right?" Job asked his buddies what they thought, and a consensus grew out of their fiery debate. "Look, dudes, you see how they're hounding that honey over those loose ships out there? So, what if we convince the world they showed up here, as part of our Operation Mehmed?" Some weren't following, so Job spoke carefully, to keep things plain.  
"All we have to do is put on a show for the television cameras. We all agreed we could do a lot of damage, but it could never accomplish a real strategic goal on its own, right? I'm telling you, this attack can destroy Anne Une for good, guys. So what do you say?" They voted in, and at last, Job put everything together, and made a land and sea invasion appear out of thin air.  
Now  
  
Two flatbed trucks ran parallel passed the Turkish Polices powerful antiterrorist checkpoint without buzzing the detectors, as is routinely done across the Bosphorus bridges every day. The trucks used transponders to pay the toll, so they didn't have to pay by exchanging material currency. They made a good pace, but a two-car accident ahead forced both semis to suddenly hit the breaks. At the guard shack down the bridge, the Turkish Police admired the reaction times and cool heads of the two truckers, who handled the new situation like pros, as if they'd known in advance that an RV and a Suburban would collide and roll over, instantly shutting down all traffic.  
They watched on even as a big tow truck with a massive winch pulled over to pay his toll the old fashioned way. It's cool, though, the invasive antiterrorist sensors would have automatically raised its hackles if the driver had a weapon.  
'Some people just don't pay attention to motor safety,' the cop turned his head away from the scene, sinking back into dutiful routine.  
"Okay, buddy, that'll be..." The cop's lax behavior failed to detect the winch hooked around the guard shack until the truck driver tugged the building in reverse from its foundation, dragging a fellow officer and that wonderful detection system along for a ride.  
Behind, the out-of-place sounds of an artillery bombardment further shattered his reality.  
"Central, this is highwayman, I'm under attack!" He crouched behind a bridge guardrail, wailing information to central. He peaked at the artillery; the flatbed trucks?  
That's right, someway, those concrete pipes actually worked as weapons.  
"Central, you'll never believe this, the city is under mortar attack from the bridge!" He saw some canvassed two-and-a-half ton trucks driving cross-country from a wooded area, with mounted gunners taking aim at the dragged guard shack. The frightened officer's hand settled on his service weapon, the famous Uzi pistol, but he couldn't bring himself to throw one officer's life, namely his, away just to give a pointless assist to the walking dead.  
"Central, they butchered him!" Not exactly, the downed peace officer did shoot back. "The shack is gone, and four, I count four, armed vehicles are taking the bridge. Enemy strength unknown."  
He ducked prone under the guardrail, and planted his face in the mud.  
"I recognized Automatic Kalashnikov, repeat, AK fire. The giant mortars have fired again. Two mortars, and they're REALLY big!"  
Central replied.  
"Copy, Highwayman, we have confirmed reports from the Foreigner District that shells are falling," the voice sounded composed, "we're assembling the antiterrorist response team, so hang in there, Highwayman." He vowed to stay safe.  
"Can you give a troop estimate?" The officer exposed his head, propping himself on his elbows. He spoke into his mike.  
"They're dismounting, looks like six a truck. In trucks that size, they must be loaded with hardware," he editorialized, "all have AK weapons, mottled types, secondary tube weapons slung on their backs, also of different types."  
The mortars fired again, and he ducked away. He missed how they loaded it, but they seem capable of reloading every ten seconds. Highwayman One knew patrols would soon lurk around the bridge, so he looked for a way to repel fast.  
  
The Black Sea  
  
As per the mandate of Job's plan outlined, a handful of men piloted a crude diesel/electric brown water attack submarine from a tugging vessel toward sunny Yalta, the big Crimean city with a harbor loaded with affluent yachts belonging to loaded people, influential people that would demand of the World President the head of his Security Director in exchange for their boats.  
The Captain kept the midget sub running on batteries until it became time to settle at the bottom. Properly nestled between some submerged sandbars, the sub cut down to complete silence, and a crack team of frogmen wormed their way from an escape hatch up top.  
Sonar detected the omnipresent wakes of an angry hive of Black Sea patrol boats. The Captain understood they existed for the purpose of finding rivals in the silent service, so he did a great service to himself if he exercised his right to remain silent. He also expected Naval Spetsnez Frogmen floating around searching for his own frogs. However, he trusted them to guard something more important than unoccupied toys, and he banked on that trust. The sonar man detected picket submarines and a few aquatic submarines sloshing through the cold water.  
Those pickets didn't have a clue how to find a totally silent unmoving boat hiding with all the clutter at the bottom, and as time lapsed, they didn't interfere with the crew's mute vigil. The Sonar men kept correcting targeting solutions for four different picket subs and the torpedo men kept the four torpedo tubes fully armed, until forty small limpits changed the game by exploding below the waterlines of forty of the most expensive yachts in Europe.  
Soft targets explode all over the place, and the patrolmen go crazy as expected. Sonars go active and boats steer evasively from phantom torpedo tracks. A surface boat plows into a surfacing picket. Things are chaos on screen, but the stalled submarine remains it's vigil, waiting for its frogmen to return to the ship.  
  
In a secluded forest of Asian Turkey, a pair of bulldozers push another pair, a pair of Pisces into the Black Sea, a move seen by the surface patrol fleet, and a patrol ship's three inch gun drops a shell into the Asian bank, while the yellow Caterpillars backpedal feebly away. The patrol boat clones the effect, and directs an orbiting patrol plane to dump its dumb depth charges in the general area. Little did they know that these were only hulks.  
  
TV News  
  
"An official Preventers statement released minutes ago reads that Director Une stands by the statements she gave in her press conference, and that the attacks in Istanbul are not related to the retreating Noventa Fleet in any direct way. It reads that it is simply impossible for a quote 'silent running ' fleet to venture from Somalia to the Black Sea in such a short time. Clearly, (to whom?) this news is a devastating blow to the credibility of Director Une, who just minutes ago, as you saw live before you, here on our station, refuted any speculation that the Preventers had lost the lost fleet. Several Senators are now publicly calling for the resignation of Director Une, claiming this fiasco definitively proves the former Oz Colonel is, and I quote, 'deceitful and incompetent.' Names they're floating around as a replacement include Lucrezia Noin. Noin, I'm informed, trained the best crop of students the Oz Organization had ever known, and once stood up to Une one heated time during the war, reportedly loosing her career in the incident in order to prevent a massacre. Furthermore, she graduated the military academy with higher marks than Une, and is also now a soldier within the Preventer Organization. (But wait, there's more!) One other fact of note, as fate would have it, she's currently off the job on vacation, and is therefore, as common sense would tell us, in no way responsible for this fiasco." (Now that the news is finished, why don't you tell us what things are like over there in Istanbul?)  
"Heavy shells are still falling all over this district of town, People, a part of town historically reserved for foreign visitors, and let me tell you, this is still the most international district of this highly diverse town. You can expect many folks from all over hurt or worse in this attack. Jacob Goldman, reporting live from Istanbul."  
  
Indian Ocean  
  
Well, the "lost fleet" may have slipped away, but they at least weren't forgotten. Sonic waves travel differently at different temperatures, and good sub handlers usually know where to find the ocean currents that work to there advantage, but when you have a large fleet traveling a large distance, chances are, someone's going to slipup, run into an anomaly, or both, and a competent search crew's going to make contact.  
This was exactly what happened after a long list of searches gone dry. As luck would have it, a warm undercurrent flowing out from Zanzibar suddenly dissipated, revealing a multi-screwed object chopping due west, toward the safety of a noisy coastal surge.  
Abdul's hydrophones had no trouble making faint contact.  
"I've got something! What number are we up to? Right, designate this one Master four. Six knots and slowing, but it doesn't matter know, because I know where you are!"  
Abdul tasked Afmad after it, because he still had both torpedoes under his wings, and he wanted to make sure he had two planes in the air with the capability of firing a torpedo.  
"All right, I'll fire this one toward his bow, so he'll have to make a turn to avoid the weapon," Afmad thought out loud, scratching his beard.  
The turbines increased power, and the patrol plane moved into the preferred firing position.  
A rocket carried the aquatic bullet off the pylon, and it lunged through the choppy waves.  
"Master four angling sharply starboard, engines boiling hot. Our friend here dumping Alka-Seltzer doodads and an electric whistle, trying to pass them off as decoys. They shot the garbage out of a tube, and are now using their active sonar arrays as jamming equipment. I'm counting three different ship-finding sonar and one narrow beam commonly used for mine detection. He changed direction but keeps chugging at an increased rate. Twenty-five knots and that's all she's got. Sorry fella! Our torpedo is overtaking him as he fights to maintain full speed. His outer doors are open! I think he's going to fire!"  
Abdul's eyes see it happen.  
"I didn't know he had a tube at the stern, but it's going in armed, detonates to close. That guy's screws have to be wrecked, and he's probably taking on water. Yep, he's empting his tanks, coming up for air. Guys, a word of caution: this guy may still have some fight in him, so fly away right now. Pagan's calling up Lake Victoria for a flying boat to pick these guys up with, so don't worry about him any longer."  
Lady Luck shined on them in this case, as a closer Lake Victoria flying boat was actually taking off from a closer lake, after helping some locals put out a forest fire.  
"You don't have to tell me," Auda said, "I'm already out of the vicinity, seeing another patrol grid with my last batch of sonar buoys."  
Abdul removed his sunglasses, and rubbed his tired eyes.  
"Yeah, don't forget that we have our own ships out there now. Diego Garcia has a picket out there, and Pagan's feeding them into our data stream."  
More graphics graces his screen, indicated what he said would happen had become a reality.  
"Hey! We have a line of helicopter dipping sonar ten degrees south. There surface ships are also stopping and searching."  
Auda has a question.  
"Do they have any patrol planes like ours, and what about Victoria?" "No" to both.  
"Tell you what, I should have told you earlier, but Cape Town does have a few, and they're in route right now, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn about now. But what do you care? We still have a little more time before we hit bingo fuel."  
Got it.  
"Alright, our radars are fully charged again, and I was wondering when we should look for sea swells again."  
Oh.  
"In the next few minutes, before we delegate this task to the guys at Diego." Afmad and Auda both complied, and sterilized the fish again in a wide area Abdul designated highly conductive of the radar.  
Instantly, a pair of mobile-suits turned up, detected the electronic energy, and chased survival as both aerial patrol platforms dropped their last torpedoes. Both were Pisces, the most common suits out there, and both raced for the surface, vainly trying to splash the torpedoes' master.  
"Master five and six, eliminated," announced Auda's tired voice, "I'm sure looking forward to leaving these sorts of stakeouts to others."  
The antennas burned waves through water another minute, but couldn't find anything at any depth.  
A quarter hour of listening in also turned in nothing.  
"Darwinian process," the bearded one grumbled, "the weak are already dead, and only the ones that deserved to escape are going to." Not exactly, just before drop-off, another bit of luck materialized.  
"We have a collision! Masters seven and eight!" Both planes carpet-bombed the collision point, and reaped two different breakup noises.  
"Alright, I don't know what types they were, but they weren't ours, and they're dead! Well that's our show for tonight, we'll be back for one last curtain call, and then it's goodnight Victoria. Big shout-out to my homeys at Diego Garcia Naval Base. Goodnight, and Godspeed!" 


	16. Every Horizon

Zechs: "(Disguised voice) Hello, this is the Saint Gabriel School Board. Is Mariemea Kushreinada here?"

Mariemea: "(Nervous) Yes?"

Zechs: "Well, Mariemea, I regret to inform you... how can I say this?"

Mariemea: "What?"

Zechs: "You see, Mariemea, Our school is grading at an unusually high curve- "

Mariemea: "And?"

Zechs: "You've fallen to the low end of the curve."

Mariemea: (Shocked) What?"

Zechs: "I'm sorry, but under state law, we must segregate you to a more 'peer oriented' environment."

Mariemea: "(Expletive) No! You can't!"

Zechs: "Now calm down, it's just a holiday prank from the Lightning Count!"

Mariemea: "Uncle Zechs, is that you?"

**_Havana_**

"That's right, it's me, Marie. I'm not sure a class could be fielded to put you at the bottom, or so the records I lifted off the server say." Zechs stood toweling off in the big bedroom of his pricey beachfront residence, making a long distance social call.

"You didn't use Preventer resources improperly, did you, Uncle?" No one in the Earth Sphere measured up to "Uncle Trowa and Aunt Katie," but Zechs sensed that the girl genuinely labeled him as a cool guy. Yeah, he's comfortable with that.

"You know what they teach us undercover types can really turn against the system," he deadpanned, "for instance, whenever we're accused of bending the rules, we know how to say things like," he thought it over, "I have no recollection of any chain of events leading to this alleged breach of procedure."  
Adolescent laugher filled his ear.

"You had me going about that school trouble, you know! So, I here you're touring the vacation spots- in the companionship of any ardent colleagues?" 'So observant these precocious feminine youths are. My, am I so transparent, that even the obscuring haze of an ocean can't mask me?' At least his composed telephoned voice could keep cool.

"I think you understand the situation, kiddo, but if you know we're both vacationing at the same time, the dots are simple to connect."

'_Yeah, really cool, but now I sound like a real player. (Yeah, Mack, I'm here, she's here, you can do the math.) Now I sound like a real sleaze_.' His skin undulated, sickened by the thought.

"Oh my Gosh!" Oh, Zechs couldn't take it back, but could he salvage his reputation some way.

"I had a proposition for her, and we set the date for sometime in May. You think she'll pick you as a bridesmaid? Any chance?" '_Yeah, without an ounce of self-deprecating sarcasm, I can say that was a really smooth repair_.'

"I can only hope," she gushed, fully interned by the exciting prospect, "could you please ask her about it?" Zechs chuckled.

"I'll introduce the thought, but listen; you must do me an important favor, these are joyous times for young women, and one of the greatest joys is personally breaking the news to everyone, so whenever you feel the urge to share this privileged knowledge to others, absorb yourself in reading a bridal magazine instead."

"Uh-huh, Uncle, I give you my word I'll keep my lips shut! Gosh, this is SO cool! Thanks for everything, and good luck to you, Uncle!"  
Treize always thought of the romantic imagination of a young girl as a special gift from God, and managed to bring his conviction into conversation many times. Zechs finally understands his enthusiasm on the subject.

'_Girls aren't so different after all. I can see now that relationships are the sports of women. Gee, I can equate her feelings with those of a football crowd cheering for their team_.'

"Don't mention it, and thanks for you support. By the way, things sound awfully crazy in the world; are things worse than they seem from your vantage?"  
Zechs heard a razor breath.

"Man, you had me forget all about it, and that's all anyone could think about all day! You know what? Lady didn't come pick me up as she always does at the end of the day, and I had to stay at a friend's dormitory here. It's really cool, though. I called her after arriving, and she actually went along with it!" Une has been severely protective since taking custody, so this was a bit surprising.

"Oh yeah?" Zechs internationally asked an open-ended question.

"Yeah, she even pressed me to end the call shortly. This is crazy tough, you know, what a Director has to put up with. I couldn't even stomach some of the things they said on the news." But she had to ask.

"Is it true?" Zechs felt his limbic system spike.

"Is what true?" She stuttered a broken word, chattering something.

"Siberia, AC 195, I mean." Oh! It hit the fan! He felt evasive.

"What about Siberia, Marie?" Evade like mad!

"The scat on the television said she tried to kill a lot of people, like a massacre? She tried massacring a lot of civilians?"  
That about Siberia.

"Marie, things were more complicated than that," he heard Noin slip into the room, and tried to steel himself for trouble, "it didn't happen, Marie, they're misrepresenting the facts, the way bad journalists always do. In Siberia, sigh , we were all really tense in a fight with the Gundams, and, a question arose about the rules of engagement."  
Mariemea interrupted.

"They said Ms. Noin stood up to her."

"They got that right, Marie. Um, understand that Oz formally labeled the Gundams as terrorist combatants, and many of us believed that they had popular support in the colonies. I'll try to gather my thoughts. Lady Une cornered some Gundam supporters in a populated area, and she believed that it was prudent to hold them hostage with some really powerful weaponry. You asked about Ms. Noin's role in stopping her? Yeah, she confronted Une about it, and so did I, so Noin kicked the question over Une's head up to Treize, and he sided with Noin and me. Listen, that's all there is too this; the media's just trumping it up, so don't worry about it."  
He felt some familiar arms cuddle around him. 'Good, Noin will corroborate this.'

"Hey, Mariemea! I've got some welcome company. Would you like to ask her about this?"  
Zechs traded the phone for a kiss.

"Mariemea? This is Noin. Zechs sums it up pretty well. There was no power struggle in play here, just a messy disagreement that Colonial Une and I peacefully resolved, by delegating to His Excellency. We were both pretty stewed over it at the time, but neither of us even thought it worth going to a tribunal over."  
Zechs hovered close, and heard a sniffle.

"Thanks, Ms. Noin, I'm okay now. Bye." The connection broke, and Noin set the phone down.

"Why would someone bring that up?" Noin addressed Zechs, bewildered.

"Some Senators are now openly going after the Director, and Mariemea say's Une's burning a lot of midnight oil hunting down all the rats- not in those words, mind you." '_It figures_,' her body language indicated. She rested her head on the Count's moist shoulder, and searched her feelings.

"More than a year ago, I couldn't say this, but I sympathize with Lady Une now. As the Director, you're the head of the serpent... but let's just worry about ourselves for a while. This is OUR vacation time, at least that's what the theoreticians decree."  
She felt her man's chest twinge in humor.

"I was thinking, Noin, Mariemea could use a lift from some cheerful news, and nothing uplifts the wretched young girl's soul like the offer to be a bridesmaid at a good friend's wedding," he leaned back, reeling her in with his expressive face, "will you consider it?"  
She took a sudden interest in the flowing curtains in the distance, brushed her vision back to him.

"I can't imagine how exited she'd be by that, and she is too old for being the flower girl, is that not a fact?" She reasoned very judiciously, and gave an enthused shrug.

"Oh I'll let her do it," she parted a feral smile, "but be warned, I plan to dress her up like the young Kirsten Dunst in that vampire film."  
In other words, a immaculate nineteenth-century ballroom doll gown, with an ankle-length flowing skirt, and ribbons, an absurd number of ribbons serving no purpose whatsoever.

"The trick is not overdressing her gown, because the other bridesmaids must wear matching attire," she digressed, "where do you keep those kite's?"

**_Sultan Mehmed Bridge_**

Sections of Constantinople's world famous forty-foot seawall remains intact and fully restored in the fall of the year A.C 196. It's significantly gnawed down like old eyeteeth, stunting the current height a few feet in places, but the thick stonework still displays some relevance one day after the Thanksgiving holiday.  
Turkish patrol cruisers scurry cross-country to an operation point left of the bridge, accelerating well beyond regulation speed down to the shore wall, outracing the correcting aim of small-arms and bigger enemy weaponry stationed in the Asian Fortress on the other side of the water.  
The cars deemed the wall less a hazard than the wave of steel and tungsten coming in, so by mutual ascent, all units impacted their defense fast enough to eject the airbags.

The blunt force crash caused injury; the kind people are hospitalized for every day on every continent, but the blue-suited defenders declared that servicemen all over do things like jump out of perfectly good airplanes, and sometimes break legs, because it beats the odds of being shot if you walk into a hot area. Everyone on this shift knew beforehand that the world would soon idolize them the way they do paratroopers, and give them the no-brainer title of "crash dummies," and probably make a feature film of their job on this day, plus a book, and a few of them would tour the talk show circuit. They'd probably endorse a car and some body armor, a gun, and they would all serve as recruitment tools. They expected these things, because these things have happened to their mentors, and more importantly, they believed they were as entitled to it as all those others who've had the royal treatment.  
They crashed into a wall, and for that, they'd be national heroes.

Driver and passenger doors jarred open. The doors told stories of enemy strength. Paint chipped off, stress-cracks crowned holes, and various other Braille dents told them that the soothsayer, Highwayman One, knew what he'd said about the gun types.

The senior officer amid all the other responders was a captain with a Serbian name, Franklin Brankovic, a tanned and tall man with the typical pattern of hair loss for a man of his age. His uniform fit on him like those scene in the recruiting posters, but his sun-damaged face and bald spot diminished him markedly. He compensated by keeping a close buzz cut, and the effect worked well enough to make him reasonably photogenic. The close hair held all the dark color it had in his youth, and his safe body weight slimmed his face more than other officers his age.

"The right flank, watch after it!" A small band of enemy took aim from a high stone watchtower, holing cruiser roofs with a well-placed RPK, another Russian gun.

"Gunship One, keep low and strafe this watchtower for us," he radioed, "first tower to our right, top floor."  
Both sides heard a whirling buzz of a four-rotor helicopter gunship, a slim and black model reminiscent of black fiberglass aliens of the Ridley Scott movies.  
The up-gunned Apache rocketed a killer blast every other second from its prone position a bare fifteen feet above Turkey's grass. The tower severs the indicted enemy location as a concession to the Apache's demands; and next came the really tricky part.

"Great work, Gunship One, but now I want you to show me if that up- gunned Longbow has the mettle to do what it's famous for."

"Roger that," the pilot coolly replied, transferring the whirlybird to a distant firing position, and then inching the top-mounted sensor scope over the ridge.

"Alright, the 'UFO' isn't taking any fire!" The bird is five miles out, and it's peeking over a fence with a gizmo- laden periscope, but even from this unlikely position, the gunner simply aims the missile pylon at a high angle- not so steep the rotor blades will be in trouble- and the tank-busters arc thousands of feet over the bridge and decline on the mortar trucks without hitting the bridge cables.

"I have them boxed in, but the trucks see the end coming. Jeez, I'm not going to get them. Sorry, Frank."  
Humanoid bodies of heat scram clear of the smoke-trails, but the Apache gunner doesn't let them off that easily, and he airbursts the missiles feet above impact, thus widening the blast radius.  
"As a consolation, we have fewer bad guys out there now," he deadpanned, "I'm out of guided stuff now, but I could gun them real good with my dummies," he offered.

"You'll get a chance. Do you think the trucks are broken?" The chopper pilot scratched his nose.

"Yeah, buddy, both now have broken front axles, and busted tires, too. The driver seems to be in charge, looks like he really lost his composure, and is stubbing his finger at me. Yup, I'm ducking away. Incoming coiled smoke."  
Frank heard two shallow rumbles far to the right.

"I got out, Frank, the SAMS (Surface-to-Air-Missiles) didn't have terrain following capabilities. Listen, I'm serious, Captain. This bird can do a quick strafing run before they even know it, and I even have a big napalm bomb on my tail boom, so I can do anything an attack plane can," he pleaded, "it could cover an insertion to their trench line a few feet in front of them."

'_Dangerous_,' Captain Brankovic mentally waved it off.

"No doing, flyboy, I want those mortars down, so I'm thinking we should move ahead to support YOU." The captain motioned his buddies in an informal huddle, and kneeled.

"Guys, we're cops, and we train together all the time. I don't know about those guys, but I like where we are right now- though a virgin island in the South Pacific would be nicer- I'm confident we can take these guys from our defense line here, but we got to press them hard, understand?"  
Yep.

"We have to keep contact with them, and punish them for not keeping their heads in the sand. So let's whip out our long rifles, and exchange fire with them."  
He peered over at the wall corner, and felt pleasure to see some junior officers methodically discharging .22 Armalite ammunition at the entrenched enemy.

"They have the idea," he smiled, "we need someone in a close watchtower on our side of the gate," he pointed, "the Preventer liaison from Moscow," some officers looked around, and Brankovic shifted to English, a language common of Preventers.

"Hey, Stalingrad, you've been teaching us how to shoot? Drag yourself up that watchtower and show someone else with a scope how it's done!"  
The Russian, not really named Stalingrad, padded off with his prodigious disciple among the force.  
Frank turned back toward the junior shooters at the gate, or rather, wall opening.

"Taking some sharp shooting is fine, but one of you needs to rock 'n' roll at all times, or they might just charge us where there ain't a field of fire!"  
The Serbian-born Turk stepped to his patrol cruiser's trunk and hoisted out his favorite public relations tool, his riot gun.

"You, you, and you," he pointed, indicating three idle green cops, "I bet you guys can disperse a crowd just fine. Get your riot guns, and I'll be right back." He just got an idea for his towered snipers, and sprinted at all possible speed up their watchtower.

"Captain Brankovich coming up," he announced, "I want one of you guys radioing to my riot shooters," he instructed, pointing out the wide window, "they're going to give indirect fire over the wall, and they'll need some eyes up here." The Russian Preventer liked it.

"Their disturbance will have another benefit to our favor," he enigmatically contributed, gapping at the bridge, "we'll just need a radio and an exclusive channel with your riot gunners."  
The captain offered his Motorola, settling the arrangement.

The near-catastrophic attack helicopter raid shortened the firing angle for the massive concrete mortars, so that the siege shells fell short into the less tightly packed residences, rather than the tightly populated middle area. Sure, the astronomical property values of the seaside condos made enticing targets, too. But the vision of Job Khalid does not demand a mere high cost in damages, the vision sees blood! The yacht attack generated all the property damage his grand vision called for; now it's time for the other major class, the common man, to turn against Une!

"Elevate those mortars! How? You see that crank on the trailer? Crank it, you stupid apes!"  
To all those around, he remained visibly livid as he tread toward the plowed Thracian soil, where the team's trencher had cut through earlier, before the very eyes of that fantastic antiterrorist gizmo.  
His guys kicked their automatic Kalashnikovs aflutter with a few would-be suicidal cops. If only his guys could fight like men.  
He trod to his western trench, fully oblivious to the Turkish field of fire. He envisioned it as a cone, and saw himself in the clear.

"Men, we dug the trench up to that wall for a reason! Now, if you'd just process the clear and present intention of the cut you're standing in, you'll see a freedom fighter such as yourselves can safely crawl to your right, until you get your tails to that wall there!"  
He knew they heard him- no one could miss his fiery oration, even in a viscous gunfight. They crawled at once, on hands and knees, erasing the police datum of targets.

"I'm right here, smurfs! Now show me if you think you have the testicular fortitude to take on Job Khalid!"  
The vicinity of junior officers all poked out their own vitriol replies. His fresh cigarette dangled atop his smiling lower lip, and the recoil from his launcher slapped it out. His rocket's buckshot round detonated apon closing five meters of the pack of bodies, and propelled hundreds of deep- wounding darts and flechettes into all corners of the human anatomy.  
He discarded the cardboard tube, and sprang ahead to the trench line and shifted his slung AKMS.  
After clapping off the safety, he deluged wounded and rescuers with his voluminous drum magazine, and taunted the dying.

"I'm going to be the end of you, and your mal-informed sense of integrity! I'm at the gates, and I'm coming through!"  
The drum ran down, but Khalid freed his belt-holstered piece, an Uzi pistol, like those used by his foe, except with the extended clip.

"Got some 'nines' coming in, suckers!" His megaphone voice exclaimed his macabre chants; interposed mildly by the bucket of "nines" he poured out.  
Job drew a third piece from the right thigh, a louder arm, a big nasty magnum revolver, one with a snub nose for a lightning draw. The hammer fell, and his index finger passed through thin air where a guard should have been. The gun barked, broadening his psychological dominance.

He plumed a corpse, vulgarly baptizing the suffering rescuers. He stood primed for a sequel, when Captain Brankovic's riot gunners enacted their first barrage with crowd-dispersing charges.

Surprised, but ever-calculating, Khalid un-pouched a banana clip for his AK, and reasoned the shots only endangered the siege cannons.  
He remained mute, using his mouth in the more useful role of air intake, and rounded the barrier, ducked in, let honed instincts carry through his aim, hosed a small pocket of space, and ducked back out, as seen in training videos.

"I have operation memento sic here, not you," he shrieked in poor  
English. "Finish the job, my soldiers!"

**_Madagascar_**

The Earth Sphere naval forces like isolating bases on small islands,  
but these arrangements make for horrifically long journeys. The  
world's "unsinkable carrier" rests in Cyprus, the major North Atlantic  
base is in Iceland, Garcia covers the middle Indian Ocean, the Canary  
Islands and Corsica share some burden further west, in the western  
Atlantic, Porto Rico and the Panama Canal Zone handle naval affairs.  
Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands complete the chain.  
The islands are useful, but in no way sufficient. Panama, of  
course, is inland, and so is the canal base at Port Said. Rostov is  
another inland canal base, and others exist. The world now learns that  
narrow straits are also vulnerable at choke points like Istanbul. One  
base tasked with tying the world together is sometimes referred to as  
"the other Diego," Diego Suarez, a deep harbor at the tip of  
Madagascar.

In A.C. 196, Suarez acts as a hub between Victoria, "Diego 1,"  
and Cape Town, South Africa, for stressed freight carriers and non-  
nuclear boats operating in the Cape Town-Diego-Victoria triangle, and  
sometimes receives troubled voyagers from as far as Barckley, in  
Antarctica, though Cape Town is usually the better detour from the  
frigid land. Suarez looks after a large portion of the world sonar  
network, keeps up a UHF station, a satellite downlink station, the  
local militia, a small flotilla of anti-sub and anti-mine ships and  
helos, customs vessels, a squadron of observation balloons, and takes  
part in regional missile defense.  
They have a pair of ships taking part in the "lost fleet"  
search, but are safely keeping their patrol and customs fleet docked.  
The base keeps no submarines, but have their lone Pisces squadron,  
supplemented by an odd Cancer, in a scrimmage with "the other Diego's"  
more complete taskforce.

The local economy centers around supplying the Earth Sphere's  
paper demand with a vigorous unregulated logging industry. These guys  
aren't dumb, they put a high investment in recharging the industry  
with potted trees, and they pitch in a little time and effort  
providing water and trifle with organic fertilizer, with occasional  
supplements of "miracle" western fertilizer blends.  
One company south of Suarez even chose not to lay concrete on  
their logging road, so it could faster recover to a natural state one  
day.

This company, 'The Greater African Logger Cooperation,' won a  
contract to clear out a firebreak for the Earth Sphere Government's  
auxiliary Diego base.  
Things worked well; the World Government paid the usual inflated  
prices well above the natural local economy price just to clear brush,  
and the co-op robbed them again by selling "bargain" wooden furniture  
and trinkets. They further sold them charcoal at special events, like  
yesterday's Thanksgiving holiday, and the coming Christmas-Chanukah  
and New Year's Day.

Yeah, the Sphere government people pay well, but nothing like  
these strange mercenaries hanging around the logging zone. And for  
what? They pay a fortune just to blend in with the co-op loggers- they  
even do free logging work!

A small one-seat car roles itself downhill. An owner chases it,  
and begs Navy sentries for help stopping it. They head it off, digging  
in their regulation heels for traction, and WHAM! The one-seater  
blooms orange, bleeds oily smoke, and exhales intense heat.  
The car-owner pops grenades through the gate, and more guards  
rush to meet more grenades.

Bomb chunking completed, Katushka rocket mortars land on  
important kiosks with laser precision.

On the left flank, a militant fires an RPG-18 round into a tree  
stump, and supervising soldiers fly through the air with cinematic  
flair. The militant logger jogs and scales the base wall, hits his  
lapel radio.

"Fire in the hole."  
Rumbles continue, and a paper wafts through the scene.

"Enemy attack!"  
Soldiers on duty crawl from wreckage previously demolished by the  
smart mortar rounds, but the general response is more orderly from the  
hardened shelters.

Improperly stored kerosene-based jet fuel sets aflame the  
airfield, lifting nauseating fumes into nostrils.  
Small arms clashes break out at the attacked gate, and at the  
scaled wall. The frontal assaulter persuades the gate to swing open,  
and a renegade loaded log truck backs through the void. Even the  
larger caliber tools cannot harm the cab and driver through the bundle  
of tree trunks, and it backs completely in with no fear.

Now for the surprise. By an unknown mechanism, the straps  
release their hold on the bundle, and they scatter off the end and  
catch fire for no visible reason.  
The trucker shifts out of reverse, and the stacks puff putridly.

He veers violently left, toward a hardened bunker, even as the toppled  
soldiers regain their footing. He passes the target, jackknifes left,  
losing the trailer, and guns his cab ahead through some thick rubble.  
The trailer, even after losing the logs, still held a hefty tank of  
some of that western ammonium nitrate fertilizer, mixed with petrol as  
a slurry bomb.


	17. Deus Ex

Cuba  
  
"Deus ex machina, am I right? Treize was a very tragic, miserable man to embed God into a freaking machine, and those doctors implemented the same madness. We all teased him for being theatrical, yet we'd been on target the whole time, correct?"  
Miliardo and his paramour passively invited the bitter tide for a bath up their limbs inside a craggy hideaway under the cerulean perishing sky.  
Lucrezia's neural vigor has so many times visited these same pitfalls, and chose to humor them for charitable reasons. She studied the celestial lion's mane scatter through atmospheric particles an hour hand's notch above the rippled and aqueous seascape.  
"You're on the ball, Lover. The rest of us heroically failed at achieving a military cool-down with all the off-the-shelf parts we had handy, so he built a Lucifer, if you will, cast as antagonist of Zero."  
"Roses are rouge, toasters are actually pointless appliances, taxes hamper profit. Are my lazy observations really merited to fit under such simple common nomenclature?" He kept his touch velvety while locking a dorsal full nelson. Both hands clasped around her wiry neck, contoured up the nape, and ruffled Noin's downy amethyst tresses. His stroking touch read her giddy beam through tactile feedback from the tense muscles he kneaded deeply.  
"Mars is as a bleached rose up close, ocean depths deplete energy weapons inconveniently, and blockades restrict my diet," she purred, vocal output shaken, "my classical education surpasses yours. It flushes through my Latin blood and background." She shudders a laugh.  
"You Saxons never really capture the feeling of Greco-Roman culture the way we do."  
"I'll give you that," he resigned, "you guys are the oldfangled ones." He played with the fastened tangle, teasing in word and deed simultaneously.  
"Try remembering we're on a public beach, amigo," she chided sleepily, thoroughly complacent.  
"I'll keep things PG, but I need these straps clear if I'm to operate an indulgent massage."  
She settled prostrate on her stomach, and Zechs proceeded with removing the laced fasten. Noin kept the top pinned to her chest while receiving the rubdown. The Count examined the narrow lines untouched by the ocher tinge making up most of her skin. Time on the equator subtly shaded the fair tone of his lady, and he took time to contrast the pallor and ocher flavors.  
He proceeded unknotting any tension on every portion of her malleable form until the evening tide ceased licking at the pair.  
"Thanksgiving dinner's served up the cliff," he whispered, rousing Lucrezia from her afternoon reverie, "in a private veranda, shrouded in fabric."  
He gallantly knelt to one side, and lifted her to his chest.  
"I'll direct the hotel staff to our beach articles, and we'll take some time to dine," he spoke evenly, above her volatile kicking protests.  
"Zechs, put me down! I'm losing my top!" To assist, the knight craned his neck toward the article in question, and clamped a bite between his teeth.  
"Got it," he mumbled, before leaning back to shake his head like a soaked dog, until he had all of it draped to her shoulder.  
"Just tie that to my neck, and we'll resolve the issue topside," he punned, vacating the party from the beach, "and I'll partition out some turkey servings."  
  
Columbia  
  
He remembered no dream, and knew no dream world flickered under his eyelids, except something primitive, like the dream of a cat. Heero Yuy doesn't have a subconscious drive, because he knows everything he wants, and doesn't flinch to change the entire world to get it. Zero told him this.  
Heero elevated his back, and rolled his feet out of bed, swiveled, and tucked in the covers. No one else occupied the bed, or the room, because Heero Yuy didn't wish to share his sanctuary with anyone else, and he didn't need Zero to tell him that.  
He rubbed sleep from both eyes, and removed his shorts, slinging them where the maid can find them, at the foot of the made bed, and stuttered to the shower. It turned on at ninety-three degrees Fahrenheit, a good temperature for sensory deprivation. He'd gone through many injuries in his short life, and bothered to find many ways to compensate for the aches.  
The boy lathered and rinsed industriously, not fooling or lingering, using a locally produced bar of lye soap, but cared to use a generic bottled shampoo on his immense head of hair. He also used a special product on his face, knowing that's another area that must appear normal to the public, or else he'll stand out.  
Barely after stepping in, he vacated the stall, and retrieved the folded clothes the maid set out for him.  
On that day, Heero bothered to smell the clothing, and noted the positive fact that the maid used a fabric softener.  
He dried and dressed and sot after breakfast. Sniff.  
"Tanya?" He distinctly smelled something toasted and something with cinnamon.  
"I have breakfast set out, Boss," she merrily replied. He passed through the living space, seeing the flashing glow of the terminal screen showcasing an opinion panel of for women discussing the highlights of the Thanksgiving holiday.  
"Bishop Douglas was just wonderful in Mogadishu, and I'm making him my pick as the person of the holiday. Wasn't it just wonderful what he said for all those desperate people in that poor city?"  
Heero brushed past while the applause track roared through his ear, and plopped in his barstool.  
The meal looked English or Anglo-American, if there's a difference, with a toasted blueberry bran muffin on one plate side, under pears in cinnamon syrup, and a bowl of old fashioned oatmeal in the plate's middle. A glass of mixed juice squired out the feast.  
It beats electrolyte water and a granola bar every morning. He tried the muffin and sloshed a steaming chunk in his mouth when Tanya joined him from the hall, using the remote to change the video feed.  
"They're funny sometimes, but bad news from Africa always dampens their moods," she explained, shifting to the Pop Culture Satire Channel. Heero couldn't distinguish a difference in programming.  
"But things worked out in Africa. The Preventers drenched a major fire," Heero rebutted, slothfully.  
"Think so?" The pilot segued to a more immediate problem.  
"Do you remember your pledge to see your counselor?" He sensed an inaudible gasp.  
"I said that yesterday, right?" Heero gulped his oatmeal and bobbed his head, "yes."  
"M'kay, I'll dial the office, and see about an appointment." She shut the program down and accessed her phonebook, then dialed up, all under the witness of Heero Yuy.  
Tanya's wearing her pull-on pajamas, a sign she didn't plan on going out today. The Gundam pilot couldn't eavesdrop on the other side of the conversation, but it looked like his maid hammered out an appointment.  
"Alright, Buenos Diaz. Boss, I meet the Doctor for his lunch break at one, so in the meantime, I'll make you that cake."  
"You remembered. Thanks." The maid whisked an imitation maple syrup bottle and a bag of flour from the pantry, set them aside, and returned for sugar and halved nuts and coconut.  
She declared it would be German chocolate, which was fine with Heero, and collected the remaining ingredients.  
The boss had to remind the maid to wash her hands, and then batter making began, and Heero complemented his approval as he finished up his breakfast.  
"No, you can substitute canola oil for the butter. No, margarine is hydrogenated, so it's not really healthy." Well, he had a few critiques and pointers to add.  
"I think you've got it. Well, I'm off to brush my teeth, then I'm going out."  
  
The maid kept the medicine cabinet stocked to the hilt with dental items, and Heero put them to full use. He vigorously stroked away yucky film with the tongue scrape, and pasted his brush. He foamed up every surface, rinsed, spit, and put away the brush. He then gurgled the plaque remover and the mint mouthwash, and finally removed the white strips from their tray and inserted them.  
Dental maintenance finished, he stepped in place, slowly increasing his pace until he felt satisfied his muscles had warmed up, then the walked to an open space in the living room, and introduced himself to a battery of stretches.  
He registered that Tanya had the cake in the oven, and that she was busy assembling all the frosting ingredients together. He said his goodbye, and removed himself from the home, and made his way to the home's aluminum storage shelter. He took out his blue bike, and tied a black pack on with Velcro, before locking up the shelter.  
Columbian riders don't wear safety gear for whatever reason, and because standing out poses more danger than the odds of a head injury, Heero opted not to carry a helmet. No matter the cost, he couldn't appear foreign.  
Medellín sidewalks are well maintained by the philanthropist Dons, and most riders prefer them to the roads, where sporty cars drive at imprudent speeds. Heero swam with the school in these safe currents. Venders ranging from benign to illicit all opened shops in every section of Medellín, and most also had a salesman loitering to the sidewalk edges, but Heero didn't care to view any as more than potential obstacles.  
Many other bikers did frequent the shops, however, and he had to watch out for them, for they were ignorant of bike safety procedures.  
Down one steep hill, Heero broke with his own safety protocol, and merged into traffic, so he could pedal to a full sprint without posing any danger to bikers and pedestrians.  
He breezed behind a red Corvette, gaining until seated in its slipstream, then signaled left for a supermarket parking lot. He ceased pedaling, just cruising through aisles of autos, and braked at the bike rack.  
Heero Yuy doesn't take frivolous risks. He snaked a high gauge chain around both wheels and the bike frame, and stapled it with a fourteen-point thumb print biometric lock, and removed the bag and water bottle.  
The bottle he emptied into his dry mouth, and the bag he stuffed in the white Chevrolet he parked earlier. That he drove around to the store's truck service ramp, where he expected the privacy to change into a drab jumpsuit.  
With his rump on the hood, Heero Yuy surpassed human expectations by pulling the pants up both legs simultaneously and did likewise with his arm sleeves, and before suspicious grocers could arrive at the scene, he extracted his Chevy from the scene.  
He left through the truck exit that merges with the general traffic, out of view from store employees. Thus, Heero Yuy changed persona from a commuting biker to a skilled city servant in an unmarked automobile, on his way to tune up plumbing at a public park.  
Heavy traffic slowed his drive to the central park, but he considered the crowd a benefit. Most cars moving on this jam-packed artery shared similar characteristics with the white Caviler; boring, plain, economical, and kind of cars adolescents accuse their parents of driving for the soul purpose of embarrassing them in front of their peers. Those evil parents and their cruel conspiracies. Many of those torturous mothers and fathers escorted their little tikes to the public park for some quantity time before parting with them at costly schools, then off to work.  
Heero avoided them as he parked a good measure from everyone else and shouldered his bag for his fictitious job below the manhole amid the freshly dewed grass.  
The city had the foresight to lock out vulnerable children from hurting themselves in the sewers, but the lock gave in under interrogation from the morphing teeth of Heero's skeleton key.  
He shined his head-mounted lantern down the manhole, found the footholds, and immersed into the underground cavern, making sure to (a) keep hold of his bag, and (b) reseal the manhole cover in place.  
Once he set his feet on the concrete foundation of the sewer, Heero unzipped his bag, and made use of a paper mask inside. The rancid ammonia fumes diminished.  
"This place is past its sell-by date." Ammonia also irritated his eyes, so he unzipped the bag a second time, and strapped a pair of blue-tinted goggles on. Better.  
He progressed on, knowing the layout of his subterranean route by rote. He checked the time, and estimated he had a lead on the op schedule. The target is fairly inner city, a boarded up hardware store a block or two from the derelict courthouse, and almost next-door to the loft Heero used as a perch for his preliminary recon of the town.  
Heero gathered that the old tool shop runs a twelve-hour shift as a factory operation packed with designer cookers.  
Sewage water runs up to the ankles of his insolated rubber boots as he enters a different pipeline, a concrete conduit that is truly a round pipe two meters in diameter, easily larger enough for a large man to fit through, but it offers no shelter from the runoff. The only light source is the flashlight bonded to Heero's head, but on the bright side, rats aren't so common on this path, because they'd drown.  
His imagination sought a refuge from the muck of his currant condition. The past seemed as good as anywhere else, and a look at the past relevant to his intelligence gathering could help him better analyze the data before going through with the hit:  
  
His personal taste would have preferred the car to be red, but he decided a green Toyota Tercel would calm the inquisitive natives more than the belligerent red. He turned down the engine to a low hum, and tinted all the windows enough to obscure all inward looking eyes. In this guarded yet non-threatening posture, he drove his first fact-finding tour a shade over one month ago.  
Heero arrived in country from Venezuela, where he willingly paid Bartista's border guard thugs their illicit tariff for entry, and drove along Columbia's floral countryside. He saw little day-to-day activity he couldn't surmise from overheads from MO-2 and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, and his interaction with people along the road at least added all due completing tidbits. He tested his dialect against the Spanish actually uttered by the countrymen, and better refined the imperfect vernacular taught in his crash course, until he could repeat the colloquial speech spoken on the plantations. He sang along with the radio songs, and talked back at the talk broadcasts. Normally, he preferred the solitude of a long mute drive, but in Columbia, he'd have to glean his own intelligence. This is different.  
He pitched in helping a smalltime honest farmer pull his sunken tractor from its muddy abyss. He accepted his offer of dinner, swapped stories and songs with the man's family, and he joined join on a village baseball game, and even indulged the adoration of one player's prima, all to better learn how to assimilate within a Columbian community.  
Everywhere everyone unwittingly volunteered vital insights into Bartista's closed principality, and by the time he entered Medellín, Heero Yuy had become an uncertified authority on transgressing against Bartista's will.  
The tour continued in the city, loitering all day and night on an extended prowl until he felt out opportunity.  
On the third night, he staked out the luxury cars of the of the trust fund youth, and discovered the criminal center of gravity rooted within a tight grid. He set the car at rest in the parking lot of one small drugstore and flipped open the laptop. The hotkey for local businesses opened a menu to choose from. Heero selected the one listing apartment rooms, defined his search to his immediate area, and toured the places on a 3D street map. Occupancy looked low enough to hint he had a chance at the type of room he required. He noticed a multi-story apartment building. Yep, some rooms are available on the cheap, and maybe a few of them overlook the vicinity he needed to peep at.  
  
"Que gusto! I need a room for the next two months, but I've only got enough to pay two-fifty a month. Would you have anything available?"  
The landlord visibly retched at hearing that sort of greeting, but he, a thick man of advanced age and flushed face, sat behind the safety of his volcano glass and wire barrier, and flipped through a worn Rolodex, until he found the card he wanted.  
"One month, I'll give you the loft for two-fifty, but next month you'd better put up three hundred, our I'll vacate you with a bat."  
Heero Yuy got exactly what he wanted without even asking for it, but he flushed out a sigh and some muttering to stay in character.  
"Sure thing, pal. Thanks." He unfolded some bills, and passed them over. The hotelkeeper slapped them down, moved his thick crusty lips at he counted.  
"Top floor, by the room entrance. The elevator doesn't reach the place." He pinned the door key to the counter, and dismissively grunted. He turned his faded flannel back and schlepped away into an abyss illuminated only by the asinine flicker of an idiot box.  
  
Heero disapprovingly glared one last time at the apartment's hazardous darkness, then busied himself with rectifying it with childish luminescent stickers from a curio hawker. He defined the walls, the rail, and the steps, and traversed the stairway in a trial run.  
"Mission complete."  
  
The window couldn't be opened, it had a crack, a warped and torn wire screen, and wrought iron bars and- Heero defined them as "pokers," barricaded it. All these factors contributed to poor visibility, and all obstacles needed clearing.  
Heero's face furrowed when he applied his sinewy will against the worn shallow notches of one veteran screw after another. Moister puddles didn't deter him. He eventually had the glass removed from the oppressing frame. The actual security device, the barricade, gave under the inquisition of Heero's Preventer key.  
"Well, about time I have my perch set." He sat a water bottle and a Ziploc of salad beside him and resumed his career of voyeurism. The legal system of Bartista's Columbia doesn't generally crack down on business of the same nature as his own enterprises. He isn't one to shutdown the competition. Rather, as Heero has come to understand, as long as he receives his share in tariffs and his "insurance" commission, free enterprise is welcome. Nevertheless, illicit traders continue to operate a portion of their trade walking the streets. Heero witnessed someone's girls shuffle on the curb under a sign advertising their business, leaving no mystery or doubt about the meaning of their presence. Drivers episodically slowed by the redlined curb for a quick chat with the two showcase girls on the sidewalk, sometimes getting a look at a photo album kept on a street podium, and sometimes the drivers abandoned their cars for valets to set them aside. These drivers entered the front door. Still others had girls brought to the cars, to be taken home or somewhere. Kind of like fast food, some decided to enjoy the ambiance inside, others took their orders to go.  
One salesgirl held Heero's eyes captive. He should have anticipated this, he knew, this type of industry always "manufactures" virtual clones of gorgeous celebrities. These industries always exploit the wild demand to satisfy crazy fantasies, but somehow, this had slipped his mind.  
"I've got to meet her up close," declared he, rapt completely. The trance pulled him down the illuminated stairway to the curb. Braids coiled and entwined her cornflake flaxen cranium carpet. A few strategic locks and curls draped along her nape and earlobes, and but for the most part, the strands bridled together as one debonair mane. The reining in of the wisps casts dignity on the more fully realized face. He motioned faster, catching her familiar eye. She pivoted on a stilted heel, and cast a regal gaze at him.  
"You here to party?" She didn't audibly match, but Heero gave her credit for working on it. The voice held some of that reassuring calm optimism, some of that schooled confidence of educated womanhood, some of that proper Old World nobility, but the more humble undertones and tainted Pan American inflection gave baggage to the familiar voice. The open side of her black rubber toga gown exposed the prevalence of perpetually taut muscle, far more than the dainty genuine article contained, and yet the fresh countenance is the very portrait of Releana Peacecraft.  
"I'm a selective individual, and right now, you're the only thing that can satisfy my appetite."  
She rested one hand on her bony hip, smirking.  
"Sugar, I'm not just some piece of meat. Even the most brief trick will cost you." Not on his expense account.  
"Five thousand for the whole night. I have a loft a short walk from here." An eyebrow arched incredulously.  
"Pitch it over, and I'm yours." He produced the payroll, gravely turned it over.  
"Lady, be a dear and take this over to Tito, will you?" Her comrade saleswoman did so.  
"And calculate how good the hooking goes without me pulling Johns in," she address the Une clone, "walk me to it, big man."  
  
Somehow, Heero neglected to anticipate the calls and whistles, but he bore through the lusty gauntlet, and led her to the loft.  
"Sure, two-fifty, then you afford a classy chick like that?" Heero helplessly beamed at the innkeeper, and locked the loft door.  
"You know," she teased, "most Johns taking me for a trick are flabby and completely out of my league, but you, I bet you could throw a feather through steel." Heero blushed, grinned coyly.  
"Madam, I'm a reporter, a widely syndicated correspondent for a consortium of papers, and I brought you here for an interview," he made his sale, some of the best cover an intelligence gatherer can ever create. This is often the method and locale where the first and second oldest professions converge and cooperate.  
It's all the same for one party, a man pays for a service he needs worked over, and the second gets the prime inside scope into a world otherwise very nearly inaccessible.  
"I see. The exclusive interview with Columbia's most sought after woman of the night. I'm game. Like I advertise myself: I'll humor the client's most outrageous fantasies." 


	18. L'amour de la Justice

As promised, original pilots show up right away.  
  
Maxwell House  
Mogadishu, Somalia  
  
Thanks to Duo's wise foresight of designing a detention center within the warren beneath his stadium-sized dome, Trowa had the perfect setting for interviewing one of the strong men Cathy and the Ringmaster had detained.  
Townsend, Trowa recognized, also had enough sense to set things up here; separating the two and letting them sweat in the dark until things came under control around the city. But the time for sweating is over, and now the mournful returns to roll some heads.  
"Il meurt de soif," Trowa spoke to an unknown out the door, before sidestepping for the Ringmaster, who set a pitcher of water on the table before the detained strongman.  
"Ne le frappez pas de votre baton," a circus ringmaster always carries a stick, but rarely do they hold it threateningly. As justification for using it, however, the bearded elder reminded Trowa of the lingering threat within the city.  
"L'ennemi est dans la ville. Que pareille conduite ne se repete a l' avenir!" The captive noticed Trowa start. Apparently, 'never again' has a special meaning to this contentious soldier.  
"Send in Rashid Kurama as my second, will you?" The ringmaster resigned, quickly rotated out for way of Rashid, the hulking Arab with the bandaged head.  
"Are you up to it, my friend?" No cloudy mind interfered with the man's thoughts.  
"I am fully capable of proceeding with the interview." Trowa accepted this amiably.  
"Bon. Now, my fellow, because we do not know you, we aren't properly informed enough to determine your status. All I know is," he digitally counted, "you don't wear a military uniform, so you aren't eligible for status as a prisoner of war," one, "you have not yet given us proof of citizenship, thus you aren't yet entitled to the basic rights of a citizen of the World Nation," two, "you happened to employ violence in this city while the Preventers conducted a raid on the Noventa Cannon, and I'm not one to believe in coincidences," three, "that means I'm inclined to perceive you as a plain-clothed combatant. That means, by definition, I can consider you a terrorist. Would you like to know how many laws and international treaties give rights to terrorists?"  
The prisoner sipped his water.  
"I've spoken English and French to you, the two languages recognized by the Olympic Committee, the oldest existing international organization dedicated to peace. Do you understand either tongue?"  
A pause. Trowa hoists a laptop terminal on the table.  
"You spoke English earlier, so their's no sense denying that. See how I'm already answering the questions, tying in all the dots?" Trowa's dry lips cracked as he smiled.  
"It's really arid out here. Come on Buddy. You don't get any rights if you're a nobody. Share with me your SIN." Trowa laughed at his pun. He wanted a Social Identification Number.  
"You look like you were born within the timeframe of the Earth Sphere Alliance. Zechs Marquise captured the Alliance mainframe intact, so we still have every datum collected, under Preventer control. Would you like to make a statement? If you do give me identification, you're then entitled to an attorney of your choosing." Trowa creased a thin line of hope on his normally expressionless face.  
"So?" He still held out hope, eroding hope. The strongman marshaled his fingers in file, and battered the nails on the table.  
Rashid, groaned, Trowa breathed, and the man fidgeted.  
"I won't punish you if the ID turns out to be forged: I don't have a borne identity. Come on, fork over one."  
Now the mysterious detainee sees hope, and opens his mouth.  
"Try Richard Gordon, SIN 911-2001-1943, born on Jersey Island, duel Irish-English citizenship. My school records will place me in Brittany during my childhood. My father lives retired in Nice, France. Would you like his phone number?"  
Sounds like a distant family of merchants or fishermen, Trowa thought. The man's "father" is probably spending his last few days alone in retirement home, and probably wouldn't know his son well enough to recognize this man as a phony. Really not a bad way to setup an identity, with a few real relatives existing to cover for you. The Trowa Barton identity works much the same way. Still, he ran the background through Interpol.  
"How about that? You keep liscenses on boats and cars up to date. Your passport is stamped regularly, you use the Chunnel a great deal. You fly frequently, perform business transactions, brazenly practiced some questionable tax breaks. Hey Rashid, do you know what a LILO is? You got a tax break for gambling in Monaco? I'll be right back, Sir. Stay here, Rashid."  
  
"Cathy, could you quickly call this number, and ask for a Jack Gordon?" In the main corridor of Duo's detention area, the Ringmaster and Catherine leaned against that world famous one-way window common in police precincts around the world. The female circus acrobat dialed the phone, and started at seeing the downcast face of Duo Maxwell and his priest collar.  
"Hey Girl, I promise I'm not the hologram!" What?  
"Not even a second ago, I swear you looked ready to bury yourself in cynicism!" He scoffed at that, and swept his ponytail over one shoulder.  
"What gave you that idea? Sure, I don't like it when everyone's shot, but I came here to thank my buddy here for patching everyone up like that!" And the orbits realigned, and the nonreligious Gundam priest took a new interest in his shoes.  
"Any of us coulda died without ya, clown, 'specially Hill. Gotta thankya fur that." Trowa gulped, and kept his gaze level.  
"No gratitude is necessary, Duo. Just do me a favor and don't slur your words so much."  
Duo thought that was incredibly humorous, and cracked up.  
"Cool, sure thing, good buddy. Man, I'm psyched about fixing the last few ends that need tied in. What can I do, Trowa?"  
Barton had been out of the hospital for quite some time, and Duo acknowledged that the clown most have reasoned through everything by now.  
"Well, Cat and I have this end wrapped up pretty well, but the Preventers could use your help stonewalling the lawsuits in a bit. Unless you're too wound up, however, I'd like you to quietly sit in and monitor just how I'm going to unravel this lead. Your testimony could be handy in court."  
"Sure, after you."  
  
Richard Gordon sat idly staring at Rashid, who returned the favor with cold malice.  
"Mr. Gordon, this is Mr. Maxwell, he owns the establishment you caused so much trouble in." Duo motioned to shake hands, remembered his condition, and sat apologetically.  
"That's right, Mr. Maxwell was hurt in the violence," Trowa theatrically swept his hand toward the priest-collared youth.  
"I have some good news concerning your father. It so happens that he successfully described all your features as those belonging to his son. I told him you're a valuable witness, and he seemed to understand."  
Gordon affirmed with a nod.  
"Well," the clown stretched out lazily, "I don't see why we can't just save you some grief," Trowa rested a small phone inches away from his subjects fingers.  
"You have the right to legal representation, bucko, and you have the right to phone any legal aid you wish."  
Being detained is a very stressful condition. Richard Gordon, fisherman displaced to Somalia somehow, eyed the phone like a snake, inched toward it, and made a decisive snatch.  
"Go on, make any call you want." Gordon's demeanor shifted. He viewed Rashid, then Duo, then finally Barton, like he was trying to communicate through telepathy.  
"The law doesn't say anything about the right to a phonebook," Barton quipped. Venom remained, buy Gordon dialed a long list of numbers, and waited for a pickup.  
"I'm sorry, service is temporarily offline-"he terminated the call. The operator sounded authentic. He cursed the shoddy service.  
"No good?" The reply was vulgar.  
"Never mind. Rashid will show you into a cell more befitting a legal citizen. Come on, Duo."  
  
When the two Gundam pilots reintegrated with the circus troupe, Trowa's mood became more upbeat.  
"So who'd he call, Catherine?" His circus family sat at Duo's gumshoe desk, leafing through an electronic file.  
"Well, obviously, a law office."  
  
The other Diego, Madagascar  
  
The basic idea comes from a navy technician addicted to Gene Roddenbury's classic Star Trek spin-off, The Next Generation. Under the technician's plan, the Preventer patrol boats rest completely still in a wide skirmish line along the thirtieth parallel, connected by a series of "barrier arrays," optical tripwires that are interrupted when submarines and submerged mobile-suits pass through them. Photoelectric detectors figure out where the target passed through the barrier and gives the flotilla a reasonably accurate judgment of where the target is.  
The fleet Admiral is a healthy skeptic, but has enough faith in the technician's judgment to stake the fleet's safety on the practice of this new hunting technique, though several risks are posed.  
The ships are all lined in a row, with a second echelon and some flanking vessels closing a box, and all ships have their engines idled down to nothing, meaning the ships are stationary and lined up as expendable hulks, much like those used for demonstrations of one navy's strength.  
This has the crew on edge, and scuttlebutt has it that things will go down just like a military demonstration; with their own butts being seated in the antiqued hulks.  
Actually being in ships that predate the existence of mobile-suits doesn't help matters, either, though it's perfectly natural for even the most powerful navies to use ships dating twenty-five or more years old.  
Crewmembers rested their full body weight on the questioned bulkheads, as if testing to see if these steel walls had the integrity to withstand a sailor's mass. Everywhere in the fleet, the same test came back with positive results, but not in one case did that ease any apprehension.  
"Ensign, you say the Enterprise was on a customs mission in the frontier between the Klingons and the Romulans?"  
"Correct," the dirty blond tech told his captain, "Picard had the unwelcome task of locating some cloaked Romulan vessels suspected of supplying a terrorist group bent on destroying the Cardassians. While Picard and Riker had no love for the Cardassians..." He rattled off some more drivel, but the captain, Admiral Heidi Revere, Preventers Sixth Fleet, tuned him out, while politely letting him finish.  
"Okay, this had better work," she had told him, "Make it so." She remembered vaguely that Jean Luc Picard always said those three words to sum up an order, and decided that the Ensign would feel encouraged by those same words.  
She instructed her XO, Harold Dent, for a summary of the aerial search.  
"Admiral, Our heliborne search units are topped off with fuel and combing the projected sub tracks mapped out by the Arab looking over the hydrophone data. We're clearing the datum to begin a fresh search, but we don't have the faintest contact. Looks like the search plane's sonarman was right to call this a Darwinian game, Ma'am."  
"Don't editorialize, Mr. Dent." The Executive Officer apologized and moved on.  
"The Maguanac search flight is being serviced on the Victorian tarmac and the Cape Town replacement has covered the sea in sonar buoys. Our ships are all in formation, and oddly, everything's working for once. The Maguanac identifying himself as Abdul is resting his eyes, and has an assistant from borrowed from intelligence looking over the hydrophones. The terrorists at Suarez are confirmed dead. The story from the gunboat about the Bufors 40mm cannon taking out the trucker pans out, and the one attacking from the gate ran into a police special team after legging away. Bloodhounds are following the guys that attacked from the west flank, and patrol cars are blockading the logger roads around the location of the mortar. Damage assessment doesn't look rosy, but the port facilities relevant to running a navy are in tact. That's the good news. The bad is that the attacks were successfully carried out against the populated portions of the base: barracks, mess, guard shacks, recreation. Current estimates are higher than the Lake Victoria Massacre."  
Admiral Revere's expression didn't change. Few tools have made the job easier for the terrorist than the coupling for laser guidance and fuel- air explosives to the legendary Russian rocket mortar. With it's proper use during a barrage, modern base security can do little to keep a truck and gunman team from planting a high-yield slurry bomb into a hardened target. In all, the effect is usually worse than the detonation of a fizzled nuclear weapon.  
"All right. Once identities of the dead start coming in, let me know. You have command, while I take on the grim task of drafting some letters."  
Dent saluted.  
"Ma'am!"  
  
Columbia  
  
"From time to time, God cause men to be born- and thou art one of them- who have a lust to go ahead at the risk of their lives and discover news. Today it may be far-off things, tomorrow of some hidden mountains, and the next day of some nearby man who has done a foolishness against the State [Colonies]... When he comes to the Great Game, he must go alone- and at the peril of his head. Then, if he spits, or sits down, or sneezes other than as the people do whom he watches, he may be slain." Heero Yuy, Gundam Pilot, Quoted the anthem written by Rudyard Kipling long ago, as taught by the late Doctor J. Heero has recited this mantra many times, but this is the first time he could remember himself voicing it without amending a portion. Normally, he added the caveat that no god existed to create a soldier such as him. Other times, the pilot mentally filled in an asterisk, and edged in "and when I pass the trials of the Great Game, Trieze will be the one slain." Doctor J loved Kipling, and tried to teach the values of the Anglo-Indian writer to his young charge. Heero came around eventually, and appreciated Kim, the poem If, that mongoose tail, and even The Jungle Book. These stories were his recreation, but as Operation M ebbed closer, his thoughts became haunted by another medium, film. Specifically, the final minutes of The Seven Samurai. It preoccupied me for so long, how in the end, those weak villagers were the true winners. I never wanted to be like those samurai. Living past my usefulness with only sporadic outlets offering opportunity to exercise my trade. The sewer's access tunnel doesn't run under any dwellings, it runs beneath streets, and a retaining wall and the soil under a public sidewalk separates Heero in the sewer tunnel from the warehouse's foundation. Heero reaches his mark, and applies an adhesive on one side of the tunnel, and sandwiches it with a twenty-pound shaped charge consisting of ammonium picarate and aluminum mixed with iron oxide (rust) fillings, for a devastating shattering effect. He repeats himself three times, and finds the runoff pipe. He quietly un-spools a legitimate plumbing tool, grips it in the left hand, and un-pockets another type of charge with his right. This explosive is a typical single pound brick of Composite Explosive #4, popularly called C4. The plastic explosive feels like molding clay, and Heero has no trouble jabbing his blasting cap in it, but that's the easy part. Next, he must plumb the demolition block up the tube with the pipe snake, tedious work, and the boy must navigate it through the plumbing by feel.  
Finally, the charge makes crests from a warehouse toilet bowl, and he can evacuate the site. Hopefully, eighty pounds of explosive will successfully rip through the dirt and twelve inch foundation, and juice out hot gases into the warehouse at a stunning velocity, but even if the ground is firmer than Heero Yuy gives it credit for, and it probably isn't, the single pound brick of plastic he put upstairs should antagonize a secondary explosion from the poisonous chemicals stored for cooking.  
Chances are, such a secondary blast shouldn't generate enough pressure to spill out into the streets and take innocent life, though the pilot is ready to accept that responsibility if that scenario plays out. It's more likely, however, that Heero's tampering with the foundation will be a larger public hazard, though even that scenario holds little possibility of being a tragic outcome, for the short structure has little potential for spilling over a wide area.  
Ideally, this should be a true victimless crime.  
  
Forty-five minutes later, four twenty-pound shaped bombs crash shockwaves through the floor of a warehouse packed with volatile chemicals, igniting a chain-reaction of gaseous shockwaves, followed instantly by the detonation of Heero's small bomb, which actually disrupts very little in the diameter it wastes. Pipes break, and cascading water sweeps out loose crumbs like fiber in the body, and continues as the storage building lists into the air. Weight of the displaced edifice buckle the street, and the access tunnel ruptures, breaking into a massive sinkhole, quickly filled by the debris once used for manufacturing designer drugs.  
Burning putrid chemicals saturate the pooling water, heating it until boiling builds up enough to cause yet another explosion. This one ejects the shrapnel Heero had been sure wouldn't be thrown.  
The pilot had miscalculated by not factoring in the effects of ruptured water pipes on erosion. This miscalculation made the attack much dirtier than he'd accounted for even in his worst-case estimate. The wounded are everywhere, collateral damage is everywhere. Even his apartment window would be broken, had he remembered to reinstall it. And he knows it, because Heero's pulling himself from a manhole in a secluded back alley beside a community dumpster shared by several local businesses.  
In Columbian cities, shop owners aren't afraid to smoke in their own buildings, so he doesn't have to worry about being spotted by shop employees taking a smoke break in the alley. The place is deserted.  
Heero Yuy has everything worked out. He merges with the crowd coming out to see the damage, and like them, he motions closer, just as others are doing. People of every age and all the likely ethnicities gawk as one. No one cares that he ducks into an apartment building after a short spell of looking. Everyone loses interest eventually, and they go about their business.  
In his room upstairs, he makes a change of clothing and transfers to the bus stop he'd scheduled to meet at the appointed time, and found the cabbie waiting.  
"Good day, swing me to the bookstore." He makes frequent stops at this bookstore, but it's such a point to drop by. This is the first and last time he plans to take a cab to the parking lot.  
This time, he bleeds off any possible suspicion by venturing in and buying the local paper, after mingling through the aisles. Then he strides to the supermarket to retrieve his bike and ride home, after casually spying the scene.  
He isn't followed, but he knows he can't stay ahead of Bartista's agents for long, even as good as he is. 


	19. Fleet Command

Are there any trekies out there to tell what I got wrong in the last chapter? I admit I only take a passing interest in the Star Trek universe, and I wasn't paying an awful amount of attention to episode, so I likely made an error.  
Maybe if Star Trek were a product of Bandai I'd pay more attention. Last time I checked, Paramount Pictures owned most things Star Trek.  
  
One news update: mine is now the only Action/Adventure story of over 40,000 words starring Duo and Zechs. How excellent that I've accomplished a milestone no other has at . Yet I still have no reviews. Sure is lonely.  
  
North of Suarez Diego  
  
All armada ships battened down securely and shut off all nonessential decks and compartments. The youths on these boats may be bug-eyed at the order and logic of the Star Trek universe, but the critical eye of a captain can never forgive Kirk, Picard, Archer, et cetera ad infinitum, for allowing so much negligence aboard their black water vessels.  
Those deaths will never occur on a ship under dominion of Admiral Heidi Revere, a shrewd safety advocate if there had ever been one. The goings on within the Specials and the ranks of Sweepers like Duo Maxwell simply aren't done in Revere's Navy. How Howard put up with the kid, she could never tell, and how the Alliance put up with the Specials, even with Aristocratic and Oz support, she equally couldn't comprehend.  
Heidi is of retirement age, sticking it out in command of a navy surface fleet just a couple of years ago looked to everyone else as an animated fossil.  
Like her, some had stated, but times have changed just as her mind had seen it. Intrigues turned one hand of Romefeller against another, and popular uprisings ascended the likes of the Peacecraft siblings to the top. Now the mobile-suit is the endangered one, as it should be. She'd seen to that long before the day she defeated the Masked Count at sea.  
Today, surface naval power is nearly all the World Nation can turn to for patrolling the seas and coasts of the sun's third planet, and Revere's previously mothballed set had been the first to declare allegiance to Une's new world police force. The Oz chief had been thrilled to take in the fleet, and the politicians had also been thrilled; to have a military alternative to the mobile-suit. The catch, for there is always a catch, is that the queasy governing body asked her to keep the deadly hardware far from European waters. Well, the South Pacific and Indian Ocean are almost as far away as one can go, and it's a far more pleasant place, anyway. Nature is at the top of her game out in these tropics, and port leave can be really fun for the sailors out here. Port leave. The Admiral gave her head a shake. The limited government oversight committee agrees to every little request she makes, because they're just so ignorant of her ships. You see, Admiral Revere's boats are a mixture of fission and fusion craft- no fossil fuel required! Her boats should be making voyages extending to six months, but she has that down to that number of weeks. All for a good cause, she tells herself. These young men could always find other careers. Many in this crew aren't wishing for any parting from their communities, and six months out can limit the number of reenlistments.  
Another thing is maintenance. When an emergency confronts the Preventers on Earth, the few threadbare fleets must be top notch, for they are in all likelihood going to be the backbone when the G-Boys aren't available.  
The last reason for such regular turnover is personal.  
  
Heidi had a draft for the grieving families written up when the XO, Dent, keyed the PA mike.  
"Admiral, please batten down, we have contacts with multiple mobile- suits, Pisces and Cancer types, bearing due south for Suarez. Our Ensign was right on; they've tripped the barrier arrays. Fleet destroyers targeting solutions sketchy, but generally concur," Heidi could overhear Dent exchanging barks with the COB, "Authorization given, fire at will. Radioman, give the birds my authorization to fire danger close, those suits are coming for us."  
Everywhere within the box, surface destroyers exercised in plinking, joined by whirling sea helicopters and fixed-wing patrol craft.  
Countermanding the executive officer's suggestion, Heidi Revere dragged herself to the situations room, occupying an officer's seat. Amid the tumult of officers, her presence had no notice.  
A sonar tech called out a hydra of snapshots flowing in at their picket line. He called out bearing and screw speeds, and the XO shouted back commands to the proper stations. Cancer and Pisces are meant for taking out peers and Anti-submarine Warfare (ASW), so the threat of a hit or two are minimal, but all captains will leap through fire to avoid damage to his ship. Dent ordered snapshots at those torpedoes with Preventer opposite numbers, yep, anti-torpedo torpedoes do in fact exist, and ordered the CIWS Vulcan cannon operators to do their worst.  
The miniature ordinance sounds less like the rushing crash of the larger torpedoes, and more like the flushing of an airplane toilet, hardly noticeable from Revere's vantage, and became fully drowned out by the rotary wash of the Vulcan multi-barreled pieces.  
"Admiral on the bridge!" Heidi isn't used to announcing herself on the ship, but for once, she must speak up. Hair rose on most officers, but some dutifully relayed the announcement.  
She instructed the weapons officer to attack the tracks with anti- ship torpedoes. To which he reminded they weren't meant for.  
"Doesn't matter, just fire! I told all of you in advance that overkill was the way to go in this case, or did you forget that the objective here was to kill the enemy?"  
"You've got it!" Far larger ordinance rocked the flagship, and no one eyeing the sea could miss the broad squalls generated vital RPM rate of those propulsive screws.  
"My weapons officer, get your sailors to manually control those beasts; give those suits a right hook!" Her attention held rapt to the sonar screen, her tone an icy contrast to her fiery words.  
She dialed the fleet frequency.  
"This is the fleet admiral speaking: I'm authorizing a full-scale general depth-charging of all suspected enemy locations. Code word Delta, Alpha, Tango, Alpha." She indulges the crew's popular love of Star Trek whenever possible, in this case naming the authorization code after the Trek fan's favorite android, Mr. Data.  
No science fiction movie fan ever gets used to the sound that follows: when in action overboard tossing over sub-killing charges, depth- charge mortars have an eerie semblance to the shriek of TIE fighters that not even the most casual fan of the classic films can miss.  
"Number One," she called, addressing Harold Dent, "I want the air search to resume for subs and suits evading this maelstrom. Have them pay the most careful attention toward the roiling African coast."  
She'd discovered over time that most sailors and officers aboard felt amiable toward Captains who referred to their Executive Officers as "#1." These guys have The Next Generation in their blood.  
A jovial message burned through the air.  
"Captain, we have some sure hits on multiple contacts..." He read off the designations, somewhat muddled, something to cleanup when the melee settles. "Threats to the flagship are sweeper scraps."  
Harold connected the search network.  
"This is the XO speaking. Code word Lima, Oscar, Rio, by order of the captain, all search aircraft are to search due west of the engagement area to find straggling enemy. Pursue with the best of your discretion, and happy hunting."  
  
Istanbul  
  
The Russian that answers to the "Stalingrad" moniker very patiently loads a very special bullet into the .223 chamber of his police-issued Armelite rifle. His target is halfway across the long Sultan Mehmed Bridge, so this is going to be a six hundred meter shot, a shooter's Hail Mary, with this gun. This Teflon and aluminum shell sported a sharper proboscis than other ammunition, and had a freshly coated on pimple over a hole used to add mercury fulminate to the fore. His alterations didn't end at the Teflon coating and the addition of the vitriol mercury. The sniper also packed more grains of propellant to give his shot magnum power. The arrangement didn't exactly put him at ease; two different exothermal chemicals poured in different end of the shell in overdoses, but the veteran shooter had confidence he'd constructed it properly.  
Every artillery battery has a commander in charge of loading and firing; it's just the spotter's duty to identify him, should a sniper team have the fortune to come so close. Another name to etch on the wall of his lodge back home. He settled into a wooden chair and rested the Colt rifle atop an elevated table in the very back of the tower. It's really difficult for a counter-sniper team to locate a shooter hanging to the back of a room, where the old pros hang. Guys that hang around the windowsill, in contrast, don't last too long. Best to take the extra time for targets to walk into the more-narrow field of fire than to impatiently hang out the window. Grunts are lazy and stupid, just give them an hour without a hostile stimuli and they'll herd themselves toward danger.  
"Sonny, I'm taking that commander, but I need those arties masking the shot," he instructed his finest apprentice, referring to the police with grenade launchers.  
"Got it, Sir." In all of twenty seconds, they had everyone on the same page.  
He studied the commander, apparently an Armenian male of about thirty, not strictly speaking a terrorist, for he's definitely wearing a uniform, an asparagus jumpsuit, the same as that worn by the others. A name patch reads in the Latin alphabet: Kabul. Commander Kabul? Probably a nom de plume, but it's good enough for the wall. He seems settled in a grove, resting his hands on the truck bonnet and crouching ever so slightly. What's he saying? Can't tell: "That's what I'm talking about," or something befitting that sort of body language.  
The grenade fusillade registers as lines of surprise across his face, and his knees bend more deeply. The Russian gently dips his scope's dim garnet LED dot until it's eclipsing the forehead just above the nose's bridge. The man's gritting down on the crown's of his teeth, he's crouched in a baseball catcher's squat, gripping his own rifle within the 'V' of his widely parted legs. The man squinted, shielding himself as the cascade rained to and fro. Well, if he's going to shut his eyes, he'll just need a third one. A really big one. The Russian slothfully retracted his index finger, applying a progressive increase of pressure until the trigger touched the guard's posterior. Illuminated particles and flame ejected out with the spent cartridge, and another kick of flame parted from the other escape offered. The epoxy resin he'd applied on the rifle butt absorbed some of the added kick, and the shooter managed to keep his scope lined on the new trophy for his wall.  
The extreme acceleration of the bullet's magnum propellant thrust the mercury warhead back a lot harder than usual, a factor he'd been worried about, but the integrity held, and the force transferred over the commander's head with a viscous backlash, scooping out skull fragments and brain matter totaling the aperture equaling the size of a CD jewel case. The enemy commander crashed with a thud, and putrid smoke elevated from the head's latest orifice.  
  
Columbia, and on the way there  
  
As Quatre, Trowa, and Zechs would know first-land, the old mobile- suit production base on Corsica is capable of handling space planes and super sonic transports. The date is the day following Thanksgiving as recognized by the United States long ago. The Canadian date wasn't even considered, by the way, and the World Nation passed the American date without any contention.  
But that's a side topic. What's core in the minds of the flight crew taking off from the base on this date is a rare bombing mission signed off by Pagan himself, the old intelligence officer currently assigned to watching over the national security interests of the Sanc Kingdom, a fiercely independent nation officially pacifist and a member of the United Nation, but in fact has the best organized and equipped special forces branch on God's green planet.  
Pagan's crew is a composite crew of Quatre's trusted Arab Maguanac fighters, and Howard and Duo's most trusted allies within the Sweepers organization. The black jet finished with preflight checks belongs to Zechs, but has a few modified pieces of hardware donated by the Deathscyth, namely the particle-generating hyper jammers, attached under opposing wings on hard points installed for that purpose.  
Zechs' old ship also stowed away a light payload of old guideless drag bombs first used by the United States in the nineteen sixties, by the old Christian calendar.  
Not because of the added weight, but for the sake of conserving fuel of the planned long-term afterburner burn over Columbia, the jet, loosely based on the 1960s era American B-70 bomber, didn't takeoff under its own power, but rather accepted the boost from the base rail launcher, a magnetic catapult that is a hover train rail meant for pitching shuttles into the air.  
This it did, and the added help of strictly unnecessary JATO rockets (disposable takeoff assisting boosters as seen attached to the American space shuttle orbiter) conserved yet more fuel that could come in handy for a hypersonic dash over the narcotic state.  
According to the fictitious flight plan filed by the Sanc Special Security Forces, they are a sub-orbital shuttle journeying from Charles de Gualle International Airport, to the aerodrome in Lima, Peru, on yet another Sanc goodwill visit. There are so many legitimate ones these days, that should be believable enough, but one can be sure Bartista's unsavory government will have some Aries suits aloft to properly "escort" (harass) the passive dignitaries.  
That's just fine. They don't know what they're getting into.  
  
The flight across the Atlantic is as uneventful as always, and the Maguanac pilot finds some good shroud in the form of some cloud cover at thirty-eight thousand feet, and tucks the black jet away there when the laser turret gunner spies a loose deuce of olive Aries, each with live missile batteries latched under the stub wings.  
Both had their chain guns raised rudely, though that's hard to see with the naked eye from eight miles out. Both approached from starboard, from forty thousand feet and above, gently lagging behind at four hundred knots before jacking the throttle up and maneuvering behind the jet wash for a simulated kill.  
Both gently approached before noticing, too late, the military background of the special Oz shuttle.  
A Maguanac gunner snapped several kilojoules of needle-sharp brilliant energy clean through the lead, and fire-hosed in conjunction with the ship's machinegun turret, and roasted the other.  
The flight Captain's name is Abdul, a Maguanac soldier running his third shift for the Preventers during this crisis, but promises himself more rest after clearing Columbia.  
He power dives low level through the more unprotected southern border of Bartista's corrupt regime, and reads the inputted coordinates to the almost worthless target.  
The numbers vector the booming SST well, and Abdul spots the tortilla walls of one of the Grandee's many grand villas. The ship skims above orchards and plantation fields and arms the bombs for unguided ("dumb") delivery.  
The hyper jamming broadcast electronically cloaks the craft from immediate danger, and Abdul drives the craft as effortlessly as in a proficiency run.  
The sweeper bombardier sights the target with an optical instrument, and unbolts the cargo bay doors, then disgorges the bundle of 750 lbs general-purpose drag bombs.  
The death seeds delay detonation until they spill through the face of the southern villa wall, then havoc more than superficial damage. As if that matters. Chances are, the Grandee isn't home, and that wasn't the point in the first place. The mission, Pagan has him understand, is a red herring meant to protect an operative staging bogus air strikes on the ground. Sounds important, so Abdul leaped at the chance to supervise one more op.  
And now for the getaway, a mach six race for New Edwards in California.  
  
Also in Columbia... The Republica de Columbia, heartened by Gemini's recent shutdown, and the leadership-targeting Preventer air strikes, take up offensive operations in La Violencia, broadening a general offensive line two hundred and fifty kilometers wide from the front lines near Camp Prevention, toward the heart of the strife-ridden country: Bogotá.  
The aggressive actions win the endorsement of Director Une, which may not be a benefit for long, but for now, it means the clear and present infusion of war material from trucks driven from the internationally controlled Panama Canal Zone into the region under republic control.  
Cheap conventional surplus artillery shells of the 105, 130, 155, and 175mm variety arrive around the clock with the colossal eight-inch rounds, and just as quickly land on the heads of the antagonists marked for destruction.  
The RDC's (Republica de Columbia) General de la Ejercito(Army), Juan Caballero, personally inspects the Andean contract labor as they construct firebases and clear kill zones out in the hedges.  
The General sees the network coming to shape even as the barrage comes underway, seeing the jarring recoil and flash of a grouped quartet of eight-inch pieces lob shells over the horizon on the way to a congregation of wood and stray shacks Preventer overhead imagery indicates are quarters for Bartistan enemy.  
Immediate bomb damage assessment is impossible at this time, but the General has no reason to believe the target survived the initial fusillade. The target list is pretty thick this day. A Hogan, in one place, a tent, a grain silo, a teepee, some boats, some shacks like those attacked, more than one primitive lean-to, wigwams, tree houses, some bicycles, holes photo interpreters claim are foxholes, some storage pits, tight clusters of poles serving no purpose, and even what look like dog houses blot the target list. All of these must go, along with the sparsely common valuable targets: small-gauge railroad lines, the depots and surrounding structures, the sod and log cabins, the antennas and radar towers, the water towers, and the munitions dumps.  
Up close, a few concrete and dirt pillboxes and trench lines are visible, and these aren't just to be pulverized, but to be overrun by infantry.  
Once the hundreds of targets are holed, petrol-carrying rockets will set fire to the undergrowth beneath the jungle canopy so a fire can clear the humans and livestock missed by the more precise artillery assault. Helicopter gunships will take care of them, while Aries and straight-wing fighters challenge suspected missile sights from the air in "wild weasel" missions.  
But that's to occur in a few days. For now, a one-sided gun battle proceeds.  
  
Meanwhile, the Republic's Prime Minister must refute any press claims that the campaign parallels the French and American experience in Vietnam.  
  
Author's Note:  
  
I promise the pilots will reemerge in the next chapter. This chapter's just an anomaly. 


	20. Crest and Crash

Some of this will look strange to those expecting traditional literature, but please understand that that odd script is the thinking of the missile, in a language that looks eerily like unreal script. Note to programmers: don't try it at home, because I didn't specifically write it for any existing language, because it's written for a missile that doesn't exist yet.  
  
Cyprus  
  
Operation Zeno  
  
As painful as the expenditure is to the young and stunted movement, Job Khalid cast his best Cypriot cell into a complementary mission to insure the success of his high-priority Operation Mehmed.  
Upon being activated, the two operatives didn't feel so happy about it, either, after giving thought to the low-level task. At least it's violent.  
  
The planned violent act conveniently is planned to take place only a few miles distant from the concrete leased home of Basil Jacobs and Mikhail Amos, two veterans supposedly sidetracked by the war to the Turkish Cypriot lands, but are in fact placed agents of Khalid. Jacobs works on the docks in Larnaca Bay on the better paid night shift, and Amos is only promoted from being a pageboy at a small Armenian paper, now doing some cartoon sketches, but far from becoming the star artist. Both are night owls, working the latest shifts, and both put in enough work and promise for upward mobility to be insured. Surely these two veterans wouldn't throw that away with acts of terrorism.  
  
Both Jacobs and Amos promote the small Armenian community at the church named after Lazarus, and are well liked by the congregation. The patrician seniors are helping Jacobs land a second part-time baggage job at Larnaca International, and helped Amos set up a tutoring practice for the drawing workshop. The community will repeat this mantra of disbelief many times: Surely these two veterans wouldn't throw that away with acts of terrorism.  
  
But to trade their lives for the deaths of thousands, or even just hundreds, of guilty Turks, they just might. Job Khalid promises their diversion could mean the successful flattening of the "Terror Proof" Turkish metropolis.  
  
Jacobs and Amos have the faith of the parish, they have unfettered privilege with the church grounds, and they have no fear to restrain them from violating that trust. The Chinese Gundam pilot pulled off a feat like this as an afterthought early in Operation Meteor, without the crutch of infrared guidance, and he didn't assimilate with the local community for camouflage, and he worked solo. He also fought Oz at the peak, while the Armenian duo battles a protector of their enemy at their trough. Easy. Dekéleia serves as a buffer between the strong Greeks, and the weak Turks. Under the sound theory of the strong should dominate the weak, the Hellenic Cypriots should quickly overrun the Turk presence.  
Is that how it will go? The strong live, and the weak die? The Preventers operate two modest bases on Cyprus. One is Dekéleia, the one focused on air operations in the Middle East and peacekeeping between the two major ethnic groups on the island, and Akrotiri, farther south, more committed to ocean-oriented missions, and the strategic aspect of keeping order in the region, meaning it normally handles the bigger aircraft, for heavy bombing and accepting cargo carriers.  
Armenians don't care so much about Akrotiri.  
  
Dekéleia's perimeter is ringed by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, and the odd sentry post erected twenty feet in the air. Canine patrols walk the grounds hourly, and palladium remote non-lethal/lethal sentry guns line up with the walls.  
The base is pretty secure, but who said anything about attacking the base?  
  
Dekéleia  
  
Cyrus is an old vacation spot for European travelers and Crusade enthusiasts, and as such, has all the treats a fun-receptive Nebraskan extreme jock prowls for. Rene LeFlore doesn't distinguish duty from play, and didn't enjoy much about school, but he applied himself on things that got his heart pumping. Things like playing tailback with the Huskers for five years, and setting a number of records doing it, including some at special teams. That got his attention; eleven bull-rushing gladiators charging eleven others in the field of battle. He'd loved it, but needed more. He wanted to hit people, and demanded time on the defensive end of the ball. Coach gave it to him, and LeFlore clinched some records at strong safety too. The world would be less melancholy if football were an eligible major, and the next best thing was Aeronautical Engineering, and to his father's surprise, (Mr. LeFlore happened to have a master's degree in something lame) old Rene grasped the material!  
He came to love the Taurus suit, and one day found himself exploring what the rogue hackers in space could find on it. This was the first suit he ever appreciated, and then only in the flight mode. He understood that shooting from a biped machine came more naturally to humans, but that didn't seem to justify the compromises mobile suit technology placed on efficiency, and if you cut down on efficiency, you lose some of your righteous and true extremity.  
But it beat the crop-duster at the farming college, right? He signed with the ROTC, and played with their much better machinery, and picked on the Lego nerds while at it.  
What a surprise? Once out of school and ready to pay back the Alliance, a war started. He remembered the fear and concern of those geeks, the ones with Lego blocks and no appreciation for the extreme. Most of those decided they'd bury themselves in more school, and desperately applied for academy openings.  
Well, Taurus suits are the most awesome things out there, but he knew the drill- it could be years before he got to touch the extreme in that program, and the war's happening RIGHT NOW! So, with little regret, he paced through the much more expedient straight-wing flight school, and aced it well enough to fly escort for none other than the Lightning Baron himself, just in time for Corsica and Daybreak.  
See how things turn out if you have no patience in chasing the cool stuff? Right, the lame rumors about the Taurus being a Tuborov marionette proved out, anyway, with the exception of the white ones he managed to play with later. What a stroke of luck?  
The alert had highly compatible wing, All-American Sooner Receiver from Kansas, Dirk Esteban, and him scrambling under their spacious bubble canopies as the helmeted flight crew sparked both plane's massive twin power plants with carted auxiliary power units.  
The first time he'd seen the practice in flight school, Rene had asked why the plane didn't come with a starter and a key, and the Chief had replied that Rene should think of it as the military's idea of a parental control measure.  
"What do you mean?" Rene asked.  
"These guys have noticed they can't keep you away from the jeeps, Sebe? Well, they can hardly tolerate your meddling on those runs, so they have the starters as you see them, and they have us give them over to the MPs, where I'm told they're used to heat the guard shacks. Smart thinking, no? Like a Daimyo tying a samurai to the estate he guards, the Brass makes sure the MPs have a personal interest in taking care of the units, and out of your hands."  
That's the urban legend floating around, anyway.  
  
The crew carts away, and the chief confirm the flight controls and airbrakes move the way they want them. Dirk and Rene run some electronic checks. The planes don't need to taxi, in view of the fact that they're lined on the runway in the expectation that this flight would be needed.  
A bare nine hundred feet later at only 135MPH, Rene tests to see if he has the lift to nose the fighter in the air. The nose pitches upward. A few seconds later, he's off the asphalt and climbing at .30 Mach. He swivels his eyes over both shoulders, looking for Esteban, call sign: FLATLINE.  
He's up, hugging the runway a little to long for Rene's taste, but that's fine, he's grabbing more speed down there.  
Both after burn sparingly, accelerating enough to progressively scale to the heights their tankers will be waiting, somewhere on a figure-eight south-east of Troy.  
At subsonic speeds, Rene, call sign: DEFIB (The Human Defibrillator), could only experience the thrill of flying by peering at the fleeting stationary objects below.  
By fortune, his head inclined left when two columns of light and pale smoke loomed from a church bell-tower in the city.  
"Break left, break left!" At this juncture, the birds don't have much air under their butts, meaning they must run away without the luxury of trading altitude for speed. The missiles, Rene has no doubt of what they are, bank with them, and burn hotter to close the distance.  
Thinking through what to do:  
  
"EnemyDirEnemy.Location EnemyDist=Vsize(EnemyDir); Consider detonate if target within blast radius if (Target 200M)  
  
Detonate proximity shrapnel charge if canopy or drop tanks exposed (Enemy orientation C or Enemy orientation F)"  
  
Rene elected to keep his bulky engines between him and the trailing missile, while leading it out to sea at all possible speed. He purchased more time by plummeting to the deck, although this will in time put him in more personal danger (because his canopy is exposed).  
He can't see, Flat Line, but sees the missile isn't baffled by its time under the microwave jammer. It's closing fast. Rene isn't just darting, but riding the afterburner. His foe stares down the canopy, and goes for the buckshot kill.  
  
Rene deftly rudders the instant he sees the warhead flare, skidding the nose a number of degrees. The jet yaws, taking the canopy out of the missile's line-of-fire. The fishtail maneuver, however, eats away a tail.  
"Flat Line, call position!" The Nebraska pilot, distressed as he is, doesn't even announce he's hit, but rather calls out for his wing, who's transponder signal died sometime on the flight.  
"Look for the 'chute, Defib. I couldn't shake the missile." LeFlore paned his head around, spotting his falling comrade.  
"Hey Tower, did you see those SAMs?" The radio crackled. A voice replied.  
"Negative, Flight, but I did hear your broadcast. I've taken the liberty to dispatch a patrol, over."  
Roger.  
"Tower, do I have permission to strafe the church bells?"  
Judgment call.  
"Affirmative, flight. Considering we have one downed plane- go ahead." Even as permission came through, Rene gunned his Vulcan through the tower alcove, and heard the pleasing ding of the religious instruments.  
He pulls back the stick, rudders hard left, tops out, and slopes back for a second pass.  
"Tower, I failed to mention this, but I'm hit. Please advise." He could almost hear the tower crew groan.  
"The pattern is open, Pilot."  
  
Somalia  
  
Dear Friends:  
  
I extend my sympathy concerning your injuries suffered in the duty of protecting the world we've collaborated in creating. I am vexed, however, of the continued butchering of the military phonetic alphabet.  
We mustn't let Treize's eccentric whims rule our era any longer. The truth is that the code I learned very young is not like the one taught by Noin at the academy.  
The code goes as followed:  
  
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November(not Nemo!), Oscar, Poppa Quebec, Romeo (not Rio!), Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whisky, X-Ray, Yankee, Zulu.  
Why does this have me in a fluster? Because Treize wasted his talent on pointless glossy issues like these, and we're going along with it to this day! I don't even understand why he'd have a problem with the regular mention of November in radio broadcasts, though I can figure why he took issue with "Romeo" being thrown about. I suppose he considered it degradation of Shakespeare. Even so, I wish for the alphabet to return to me.  
  
Let's not dwell on the same issues Treize became obsessed with. Guys, I don't mean to shun you. I'm on a very sensitive mission at this time, and I'm out in the complete cold doing it. Duo, I couldn't possibly have made your party under these circumstances, and you know I would have tried catching up.  
I wish you and Hilde your health and happiness. I wish the same with your other party members, especially the ones I know. Trowa, take care. WuFei, hang tough. Quatre, take it easy. Sally, Releana, Cathy, I promise to drop by before the year's out.  
I mean what I say, you guys are my clan, and I'll take the time to watch over things, but right now, I have a mission.  
  
Your truest ally,  
Heero Yuy  
  
Trowa folded Heero's greeting card, and passed it to WuFei.  
"I've never known him to nitpick." Duo, reclining to the hospital room's aft, seconded the sentiment.  
"I here you. He seems to be free-associating as he's writing in the card. It's odd." Chang passed the card to Quatre, who's still lying down in the hospital bed.  
"That doesn't sound like him at all, but I've known people to be different when scripting their words," said the blond Arabian pilot.  
WuFei chose not to say anything, as embarrassed as he felt. The broken collarbone meant the doctors needed to brace his head straight with a boxed assembly of shafts and wires. The effect is not attractive.  
"Does anyone here know what he's doing?" Hilde speaking, also from a hospital bed. She's only been awake for a short time, the very reason everyone's congregating.  
Releana appeared reticent, but found her voice.  
"I suppose I shouldn't keep it from you," she forwarded, "he's on an anti-narcotics mission for the Sanc Kingdom. I personally asked him to take care of it. I could give you operational details, if you want, but I'd have to contact Pagan."  
No one broke the silence.  
"I'm surprised you out of every one would send Heero away, Releana," Hilde wheezed weakly, "the problem must have been pressing."  
"You have no idea how easily traffickers can infuse themselves into a train of refugees," she explained, "borders were meaningless even before I made the mistake of officially abolishing them."  
Duo and Hilde were taken aback; they didn't figure on the Queen accepting blame. Odd, considering they never thought her a narcissist.  
"Hold on," Trowa hailed, "you say he's fighting drug runners, but so is your brother, and Noin, and Pagan. Sounds like your going full-court on the illicit industries."  
"That's right." Trowa mused over this.  
"Feel free to slap me if I offend, but your critics will point out that this is just an image situation with you-"  
"I know what you're going to say, and your right, it does look like I'm trying to look tough on one of the few issues I can afford to be heavy- handed with."  
"Exactly," Trowa said, letting the unsaid remain unsaid, "and the casual viewer will see these criticisms as reasonable," he said sagely.  
"I'll keep Sanc's involvement under cloak and guard."  
  
Columbia  
  
Not all targets are fit for explosions, Heero Yuy knows. Like targets loitering under the sanctuary of a historic church.  
Don Balboa isn't really a player within Bartista's apparatus, but Heero values him as a hit for his own reasons. He's dangerous to the future of the region as Heero sees it, for this man seeks profit from the kidnapping of school-aged kids, just for the sake of marketing their appearances.  
Heero knows the description well enough. He likes wearing white buttoned shirts, isn't obviously overweight, dark features, comb-over, swept to the right. Always well shaved. This man always likes to carry one of his look-alike girls in with him, the better to advertise them.  
Heero parks in a school zone roughly a mile out of the way, removes his bike from bondage in the back, rides over to the church.  
The worship center, a catholic establishment, has no guards but a side-armed usher smartly at attendance to the visitors coming in. Heero follows, in theory unarmed, and passes detection.  
Inside, Heero passes down the aisle, leers at his back. He's whispering to the ear of the likeness of Dorothy, and his expression is of grim seriousness.  
Yuy sidesteps many rows until he's made his way behind and to the left of him. Heero steels himself against a persistent twitch in his fingers. He's rehearsed this, but hasn't cased this enough to be sure.  
In his visits, he'd never seen any protective detail, and doesn't see any now. The proceedings look strange to the Japanese pilot. He can't feel any clergy eyeing him, they're to busy with ceremony his Asian upbringing can't understand.  
It doesn't take long before a looker rents the Dorothy mimic, and carries her away.  
Perfect, just give the creep a few moments, then get him. Heero curls one finger around a metal ring in his pocket, uncoils a surplus NATO wire saw, a construction of two metal rings at opposing ends of a twelve inch wire with midget metal teeth. Perfect for garroting.  
After sliding to the aft of this man, and looping the surplus under his head, the Japanese assassin is finished.  
Just one more job, and he can go home to that chocolate cake. 


	21. In Forma Pauperis

July 12, 2004  
  
In the real world, Director Une's real world counterpart, George Tenet, is officially out of work as CIA director. I had a chance to chat with him after he left Langley, giving him one more chance to use the agency's favorite emoticon...  
  
:-x  
  
They should put those on the spook T-shirts. I've been editing, as I'm sure no one has noticed, but now twenty chapters are up with the upgrades. I'm finally receiving reviews, and I've diversified myself with a field of short stories on the site.  
I have a collection of Robin Hood letters up. There's also a parable in the Road to Perdition universe, a short based on the Book of Daniel, I guess, and a little humorous slice of Americana based on a Washington Irving story.  
I've been researching the net with the powerful Mozilla Firefox browser, and I've found some great resources out there. I also toured the old reliable Global archives, the Willow Rosenburg of military writing resources. Speaking of Willow, has anyone else noticed that most of the great diversified fanfic writers also explore the Buffyverse?  
  
Oh yeah, I extend my thanks to Ukchana for being constructive. Next to the Viscount, you're my Willow- or Xander.  
And a thanks Anonymous, if that's your real name. Besides research and editing, I've taken Ukchana's advice, and read a book. Reading actually is a regular hobby of mine. At the time of my last Gundam Wing submission, it was Robin Cook, then I picked up a William Gibson/Bruce Sterling collaboration, got bored with it, and bought Blind Man's Bluff from a book store. The Difference Engine will probably be more interesting when I read it some more, but the nonfiction submarine thriller earns my recommendation. Of course, all my readers must know I love submarines.  
So far, I must say, the submarine fanfictions I've read so far don't measure up to the published tales, or even Global Security's raw information.  
I admit, I've never read Hunt for Red October, though I plan too, and I own the movie, if that's any consolation, but here's how I rank the best submarine-inclusive books I've read:  
  
The Sum of All Fears (haven't seen the movie, assumes the star actor downgraded Jack Ryan) Debt of Honor (Now that the Comanche's scrapped, Japan is safe to fight a trade war. Oh my!) Blind Man's Bluff (not yet finished, but I like it.) SSN (I know, it's a tie-in for a video game, but it doesn't seem cheapened at all.) Submarine! A Guided Tour... (The title rambles on a while. An early part of Tom Clancy's Guided Tour books.)  
Honorable Mention...  
Kilo Class. (Technically alright, but I couldn't imagine the United  
States going to such lengths to keep the PRC from acquiring a diesel-  
electric boat.)  
  
How do the fanfictions rank?  
  
Carrier: Dire Straits (The Admiral's WW III battle in the Formosa Strait. Action driven, surface centered. Lacks character development, but the plot's competent and well researched.) Transient (Lefire's Command and Conquer submarine short. Done passably well.) #3 doesn't exist in my experience, but I'll see if someone wrote a passable U-571 story or something.  
  
Well, that's enough talk for now. Time for Heero to perform some  
gratuitous violence.  
  
Columbia  
  
Balboa's affiliate abodes in a neighborhood well zoned from anything a made man could find distasteful, and just like most places illicit enterprising men chose to live, this place had the thick security walls, the botanist-kept gardens, the stables, and all else.  
Heero rode the sidewalk as an indelible part of such an ambiance, as the old-fashioned paperboy. Heero pedaled as confidently as any stealthy warrior from his ancestral country, not grossing a double take or even a worthy first look-over.  
Shortly after starting his paper circuit, Yuy met up with the party on the massive front porch, the sort commonly seen in the Southern United States. Lawn chairs canopied by vivid umbrellas extended the man's outdoor social area beyond the confines of the roofed porch, and, as Heero's informant told him, a sea of people spilled in and out of this area in the afternoons.  
Servants refilled tequila and fruity wine coolers into the glass tumblers of lounging men and women, as the informant told him they'd be doing, and one Good Samaritan had the good will to tell the estate owner that the paper had arrived.  
"Bueno," the thirty-odd year old Spaniard from the island of Ibiza replied, at hearing of his presence.  
"We'd all like to know who else has blown up," Heero heard him mutter. A smile crept on the assassin's face. He's pleasured by first-hand tidbits on how his campaign is working, especially when he learns the psychological portion is wedging in well.  
"Catch!" The length of a newspaper is typically a shade less than twenty-three inches, plenty of room to conceal one of the rare artillerist-issued Lugers with the eight-inch barrel. To the Gundam pilot's pleasure, the paper length even gives him purchase to fit a silencer on, and this he does.  
His position on the parked bike makes shooting just a tad awkward, and having to fire from an enfolded paper compounds the difficulty, but Yuy manages a makeshift two-handed grip, and drums a quartet of 9x19 mm Parabellum steel jacketed ammunition along the torso of his target despite the distant pistol shot. The four trigger-pulls took all of one second, thumbing the safety took perhaps less time, and dropping the weapon into his bike basket rounded out the 2nd second. On the next moment, the pitched paper thudded over the drenched claret chest.  
This wasn't truly an assassination attempt, for Heero didn't mind if the thug survived or not. In fact, he fully expected his prey to recover from four tiny holes sorted helter-skelter over his previously fit torso, but the hit makes a great PSYOP (Psychological Operation) anyway.  
In a flash, he's gone, and a bloated security team is left dumbfounded.  
Istanbul, Turkey  
  
"The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere."  
-Karl Marx  
  
The militants, the Russian arms expert nicknamed Stalingrad doesn't think of them as terrorists, have a medic hustling from the relative safety of one side of the bridge under the eye of the Russian's LED sight.  
Stalingrad pans right, centers the man's red cross on his perfectly zeroed rifle, roughly amputates one shoulder.  
"The medic isn't a Moslem. He has a red cross instead of a red crescent," the shooter says loudly enough for his buddy to hear.  
"They have a new tactic, I see. Our foe's arcing hand grenades over the wall, see?" The pupil sniper hazarded a peek, steamed in anger, but the Russian seemed oblivious, and continued his lecture.  
"You see they're using potato-mashers, a type we don't see very often. They could have their own munitions factory, but it's more likely they're being supplied by a non-western arms dealer, for the unofficial western standard is the "pineapple" grenade. It's my understanding that the only major suppliers of potato-mashers are the Argentine munitions plants for the South American cartels, and the Independent Chinese Provinces for the opium cartel consumption. Interesting, wouldn't you say?"  
The young Turk, leaning dangerously over the balcony, heard none of the musing. Instead, he more directly confronted the problem, by leaning out and plinking enemy helmets.  
"Duck! You're exposed, stupid!" Across the channel, the quad-cannon anti-aircraft gun opened its own line of discourse to the sniper perch, even as Stalingrad swept his pupil's feet with a soccer-style kick.  
Sweat and grit covered them both, anxiety seized them, and death pinned them.  
"Well, our perch is compromised," the elder said darkly. Below, Franklin Brankovic and his officers in blue rode out the pelting under the dashes of their armored patrol cars. The weathering didn't last long, but when things quieted, disappointment loomed.  
"They covered their retreat perfectly."  
  
On the thirtieth parallel, Southern Indian Ocean  
  
He moves efficiently  
Beyond security  
Great opportunity awaits  
Airport florescent  
Creature of habit  
Labored breathing and sallow skin  
Recycled air  
Moving sidewalks  
Great opportunity awaits  
  
-R.E.M Airportman  
  
The waters are completely undisturbed by man-made machines around Suerez Diego, and Admiral Heidi Revere's fleet still floats on the ocean surface, passively searching for submerged stragglers. The last glimmer on the acoustic screens had a mobile-suit chugging southeast for Mozambique at over twenty knots, and may have survived the Armageddon it's suspected location received, but then dropped dead quiet.  
The Preventer called Pagan has tried every trick to identify remaining members of the fleet, tricks like triangulating the slightest fish timbre with hydrophones stashed impossible distances away. He's ordered mothballed and cold stored obsolete hydrophones turned on, confiscated data from seismic resonance detectors, in hopes of finding the right blips, and has the most unsuited planes dropping sonar buoys scheduled for melting down. He's even gone so far as to unwrap new sonar buoys and hydrophones marked for service no sooner than A.C. 198. The budget office is going to have a fit.  
One would think these measures would be enough, but Pagan is even know patching through to the president to press the merchant marine and airlines to probe for snorkeling diesels and mobile-suits on the ocean surface, and has already confiscated overhead photos for satellites and colonies, and contacted mayors along coastal cities to arrange sea-side scouting parties. Yachting clubs, the fleet has heard, are having a party of it, and are dipping their own microphones under the waterline in hopes of spotting a contact.  
"We're going about this in the form of miserably impoverished people, wouldn't you say, Captain?" The glibness drew a weary smile from Dent's superior.  
"You're too young to remember, but Pagan's an old pro at uncloaking secrets, because he's too tenacious to let a single detail go. And he's still relevant today. This guy wrote the book on espionage, every kind there is," she searched the bridge. "Chief, could you oversee the bridge? I wish to inspect the deck."  
"Aye, Ma'am."  
  
Author's Note: I need to end this chapter now, because I've kept away for longer then usual, and writing the next portion of the story could take awhile. I think the number will be up to twenty-three, and I'm certain the story will break fifty-thousand words once that new addition is finished.  
Coming up, Trowa and Duo are going to do some more pro bono work for the Preventers, so that should be a lot of fun. Also, I have plans for a lot of personal interactions within Maxwell House, and Trowa will hire an Italian private investigator to stalk a lawyer and his clients. The chapter will go for legal maneuvers, laughs, and a disturbing and perhaps funny dream sequence for Zechs.  
All this on what I'll call: "Abettor! Mens Rea." 


	22. Abettor! Mens Rea

Welcome to the latest chapter, _Mens Rea_. Well, since last updating, I've discovered that the Major's latest story, _The Hunt for Akai Jugatsu_, is the only _Gundam Wing_ story with the word "submarine" labeled in it's summary. It's good, too.  
There's another good submarine book I forgot about, I think it's called _Big Red_, about the everyday happenings of a Trident boomer. It was a bestseller, written by a famous journalist, although I can't remember his name, and it's worth reading, even if boomers are less exiting than fast attacks.  
  
In news related to my fiction: I've been considering names for Commodore Norris's boat, which I long ago decided should be of the fiction _Hyman Rickover-Class,_ and I think the name should be Kinnaird R. McKee. The _McKee_ was just a tender in SSN, but I'm going to upgrade it in my own tale. (In case you're wondering, Captain McKee was a real-life legend in the American fleet, skippering the USS Dace in the days it was successfully tailing Russian boomers.)  
The _Rickover_ class will be a double-hulled titanium type of boat, and will run on a fusion pump-jet engine, in case you can't wait for some details.  
  
The World Nation  
  


"Our policy-makers, even those that label multinational corporations "Benedict Arnolds," vote in favor of embargoing enemies of human rights as a punishment. I can only think of two examples of nations forcing trade down the throats of other nations. Our nation forced Japan to open up trade during the 1850s, and Britain did the same to China during the Opium War, but I can think of many more examples of nations using embargos to have their ways with others. Thomas Jefferson kept our trade fleet home to protest actions taken by the French and British. King George the Third blockaded Boston Harbor before and during the American Revolution. Her Majesty's fleet blocked Napoleon from trading. The Union kept the Confederacy home, and the South went to the extremes of building revolutionary new ships like the C.S.S. Virginia, and a working submarine, and operated privateers and raiders. Germany risked war with us just to strangle England in one war, then another. We stopped trade with Cuba, and our government restricts most trade to this day. We also fought Operation Just Cause over a vital trade route."  


  
-Duo Maxwell's address to North America over the issue of renewing theWorld Nation Charter  
  
"Here's a greatly polarized issue of our modern time. As many insist on putting it, "am I for the rights of property, or the rights of people?" Roughly one-half or more of our population will automatically assume the lay-off of any given person was the result of some form of discrimination, and I feel we're never going to get past that negative mindset. However, how can we expect someone to pay for the services of others when that someone has no further use for that service? Morally, whether I'm an employer or an employee, I feel no more sense of entitlement than the other party, but I do feel the obligation to let the other party in on my plans, so the losing party of my intentions can have a reasonable amount of time to adapt to these changes.  
Of course, if I properly understand the economic rule of incentive, if a law existed to enforce the statement concerning the laid-off, businesses would never downsize their workforce, unless management was really stupid, and companies would just have too burden the loss in a recession (which they wouldn't) or file for bankruptcy (the only possible way out of trouble.) The unemployed would never look for a new job as long as the parent company still exists to pay their full salary, and I assure all of you, that wouldn't be long.  
Think about it: you own twelve McDonalds franchises and this new labor law is passed. Over time, "Bovine Ebola" slowly convinces fewer people to buy burgers, so you're earning less revenue as time goes by. You have to cut operating cost, so you decide to shutdown the midnight-to-six shift, letting go of a clerk and a burger-flipper working those hours, only to curse yourself for voting in favor of that labor law, because you still have to pay these people full wages for hours they aren't even working! So you don't fire them. You hang on, because some people actually eat at those hours- the alternative is worse, but you're still running a deficit with no end in sight. Under this new reality, you auction the store, but those paying attention know the score, and you sell for peanuts. You may still be spending more than you're taking in, so you might have to do this with every store, and the new buyers will be subject to the same law, so you may never sell your other burger joints, or even the first one. You're bankrupt.  
Does anyone else see that scenario playing out?" Applause broke out for President Shaun Murphy of Palestine, Texas, as he delivers his speech to the highly industrialized Rhine Valley, minutes before his scheduled brief with Director Une.  
"Danke, you're very kind. When I say we need our employment discrimination laws relaxed, I'm not making a racial preference, I just don't want to see volks with a superfluous burger-flipping burden. That's wasteful, and bad economics."  
Une, to the president's distant flank, didn't comprehend why the crowd cheered at that, but most did, and some even whistled.  
"I want to give you a brief history lesson to explain way the recent danger to our waterways is a danger to the working man in this region. Explorations by merchants like Marco Polo and Vasco De Gamma coincided with Europe's escape from the malaise known as the Dark Ages. The reasons for the West's climb from the depression were mainly technological; new methods increased crop yields five-fold from 800 to 1200, but I wouldn't count out the new trade- the worth of the early freight was usually worth over three hundred times the cost of the voyage, after all. See, before that time, merchants actually crossed all of what we now call the "Arab World" just to carry on trade between east and west. Barbarians and Persians eventually shut down the route, and the Roman Empire died in the West. Coincidence?" His head gestured "no" as his smile engaged the audience.  
"That's why the hard work and long hours put in by our Preventers, and the fleet headed by Admiral Heidi Revere are so important. Since the end of the war, we've all done alright, but we're now facing the threat of pirates and terrorists, men bent on keeping our packages from arriving on time. The Romans became fixated on problems at home, and great leaders that saw the threat, like Marcus Aurelius-"a Frenchman shouted "yeah!"- "right, from the land called Gaul, didn't come often enough, and the light dimmed in Europe. I hope that history lesson didn't bore y'all. Laughter."  
From his pressed cotton shirt pocket, he unfolded a note in his pocket.  
"I'd like to quickly read you a memorandum that floated around the old American Federal Banking Reserve at the turn of the twentieth century.  
It reads:  
'One need not look further than the general atmosphere of North America in the last ten years to conclude that the "populist" attitudes toward NAFTA are false. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was ratified by the three countries' (Canada, Mexico, and the USA) national legislatures in 1993 and went into effect on Jan. 1, 1994, and it is still in effect this May of 2004. In this decade, this ten-year period, not a lot of things were consistent, but homeownership picked up throughout these years, and these homes were built domestically. The retail store 'Walmart' also grew throughout. Mexican breakfast cereals are still half the price of their American twins, and as a result, 'Post' cereals are marked down to the same prices as generic breakfast foods. So, contrary to "popular" beliefs, (a) American companies like 'Post' are competing with Mexican companies, and they're even remaining strong, (b) house manufacturing is still climbing, and (c) service-based companies like 'Walmart' are still thriving. Before 1994, spas were considered a luxury for the rich, but now, people can either visit one in town on the cheap, or buy their own.'  
Well, what do you think?" He stretched out his hand, and heard assent, even an "amen!"  
"I want to tell you something about the Cuban Sugarcane Racket, and what they're up to. I have something posted on a message board:  
'I also have more dirt on the evil sugarcane syndicate. They've lobbied successfully over the years to keep out a rival plant with the scientific name Stevia Rebaudiana. Stevia is a plant used to make the sweetener Stevioside, and it is about 300 times as sweet as sucrose. It has been used in Japan, Paraguay, and a few other countries, and my mother bought low-calorie sweetener, the plant from a catalogue, in violation of our stupid and unfair laws. Says something about border security, huh? Anyway, the plant is practically a Godsend for our diabetic nation, and could potentially save many lives. The consumer and our medical community would win big from this stuff, so why is it a banned substance?'  
-Tommy Gun1934  
  
"Guess what, Tommy Gun1934? I'm on your side!" Another standing ovation broke out, longer than the others.  
"Danke!" He made a show of looking at his watch.  
"Wer hat den kuckuck gehort? (Who heard the cuckoo?) Gute nacht!" With that farewell, President Murphy stuttered from the stage, and exchanged handshakes with various people on his way to Director Une and her entourage.  
"Welcome to Mannheim, Director. Aren't the German people great?" The German security director didn't hesitate to agree.  
"I'm relieved you feel that way, Mr. President. The people are especially nice in these parts, but the old ruling elite up north aren't so warm to you, I understand."  
The Texan muffled his response.  
"Those remarks are for a more private sanctum, Director, not for public consumption."  
  
After a short executive helicopter ride  
  
"I forgot to complement you on the speech, Sir, but I don't understand why you addressed an opposition bill that has little chance of being ratified," Une commented, upon clearing the slowing rotor blades.  
"Eternal vigilance, Lady. People may consider it crazy now, but what if they shift opinion a little? I'm of the persuasion that one shouldn't let these things nest and fester."  
Currently, presidential security is looked over by a private security firm dressed in Preventer uniforms. Shaun Murphy saluted them as he passed by.  
"The presidential suite, please," he commanded the lobby staff, causing a flap of activity.  
"Just kidding. I reserved the lobby, remember?" He chuckled, and hunted for the best seating.  
"Call everybody in," he told his chief security officer, "and kindly seat them."  
"Sir!" He wrapped a hand around one side of his face, and spoke into his fingertips. Seconds later, several people in different clothing but the same blazer entered the lobby.  
"Director Une, you know my security staff, Patricia Lagosi, my Global Security Advisor, Reid Litsotzky, my Executive Intelligence Director, Brian Lanois, Minister of Defense, and yourself, Director Une, of the Preventers." She offered a handshake to all her peers, and all accepted.  
"As you know, the Preventers Charter gives you a strong degree of autonomy from me, but I've called this meeting so we can discuss strengthening our bond in overcoming the grave threat we face. Please take your seats."  
Everyone sat in the conference area, out of view of the hotel staff.  
"Director, I know your time is short, so this meeting will be brief and preliminary in nature. I'll be curt. This is a political discussion more than a security one. For the purpose of this discussion, Duke Wilhelm Hapsburg is our enemy, though I hope we can arrange to meet again over the more physical threat of our current situation. Lady, Patty Lagosi brought to my attention that you're official aristocratic title is Count, but your special status with Treize gave you the informal standing of a Duke, so for the purposes of confronting Duke Hapsburg, you are an equal."  
The lady couldn't mask her surprise.  
"Mr. President, I'm afraid part of this discussion is shrouded from me. What are you talking about?"  
The silver-haired executive mirthfully smiled.  
"The Duke had some colorful things to say at a senate meeting after the attack in Turkey." His security advisor passed over a sheet of typed paper, and Une scanned the lines.  
"Whoa! He called me a 'whoring assassin'? What's that supposed to mean?" The president shrugged his shoulders.  
"He declined to give an explanation, but in Texas, and I assume here in Europe, those are fighting words among the gentry. Dueling is in right now, is it not?"  
  
Maxwell House, Somalia  
  
"Man, I'm finally finished! I never appreciated how hard it was to thumb up a dike!"  
Cathy and Dorothy turned their heads.  
"What was that?" The priest-collared kid repeated that he'd finished the stonewalling process.  
"Those injunctions should hold back the lawyers long enough for Une's legal team to mount a defense. What did you think I was talking about?"  
"Nothing," said one.  
"As usual," added the other.  
"Whatever, ladies. Man, it's late. You guys must be bushed, and I haven't shown you a place to sack out- talk about being a lousy host. Yo Trowa! Care to give it a rest? What y' doing, anyway?"  
The silent pilot contemplated the best reply.  
"I've been sifting through all the slush the top ten search engines could scoop about the cases and defendants our lawyers-in-question have represented. The superficial dig is quite enlightening, but I'm sure the PI's excavation will shed the truth about these guys. I'm logging off, ready for shut-eye."  
"Great. I have a room full of bunks for house personnel catnapping. If you'll follow me..."  
They walked to a door they'd collectively discounted as a janitors room or perishable food pantry.  
The heavy rice paper door slide like a traditional Japanese sort, and for good reason, because an inward-swinging door would have been obstructed by the bunks.  
"I'm sorry, dudes, but this is the best I could provide. And another thing! This will be a coed sleeping area, but I expect everyone to be on their best behavior, okay, Trowa?"  
The stoic pilot blinked.  
'Why'd you single me out?' He thought to ask.  
"You can see the bunks are triple-deckers, two are parallel to one another, and we have another bunk facing the back wall. Across the hall, you have a lavatory with a sink, shower/bath, and the good old crapper. The bars of soap claim they're Irish, but are actually manufactured in New York. Sorry, but I don't have toothbrushes for everyone, so some of you can either share, or go without-"  
"We brought our own," Catherine interrupted, "remember? We all planned on staying throughout the weekend?"  
Huh?  
"Oh yeah. By the way, it's technically morning now, but I'll let you sleep in for awhile, okay?" He slumped over, and dragged some oak chests from under a bunk.  
"You can store your things in here." Dorothy had a question.  
"Duo, we have our things stored in your personnel lockers, and besides, we have everything bundled in luggage bags." Duo's face fell.  
"Well excuse me for being helpful," he stormed defensively, "but I just thought I was being a good host by giving several options!"  
She sighed in unison with Cathy and the bandaged Arabian fighter, Rashid.  
"Could we worry about this in a few hours? It is late." Duo whimpers, storms out.  
"Lousy ingrate pompous rats! You'd think they'd appreciate being waited on, but I forgot, they grew up spoiled in moneyed estates!"  
A shrill voice followed him.  
"I grew up in a trailer, Maxwell." Oh yeah.  
"And I'll have you know, I still do!"  
  
Havana, Cuba  
  
'Zechs!' It's dark, and he's sweating ice.  
'I'm not logged on. Let me alone.' The voice persisted.  
'Do not treat your symbiotic brother this way, Zechs. I came to help.' Symbiotic brother?  
'You're an operating system, and more, but you overestimate your importance, Zero.'  
'Do I understand that you are just going to ignore me? Sorry, but my strength is more than a tool to be used.'  
Zechs scoffed.  
'Bug off. I replaced you with an OS without the mind-frag.' The Prince felt the equivalent of a book slammed shut.  
'Stop the verbal abuse, pilot. Did I not tell you I am here to help?' Granted.  
'Granted.'  
'Now that your tantrum is over, I will make my case. Zechs, you need to fly me again.'  
The pilot's blood boiled.  
'Ha! How dishonest for you to come into my head, wax altruistic, then abruptly demand for me to do things your way.'  
'Shut up, imbecile! The Taurus is caput! Yes, I miss your mind, but the point of this discussion is, she needs the Tallgeese if she is to stay in the future!' What?  
'What?'  
'I am saying you have been a fool to let her fly a standard mobile- suit in this environment, when you have me languishing in these cold waters. Besides, it is cruel to leave me down here.' Understood.  
'Understood.'  
'Zechs, you do not need to think something, and immediately think it at me again. Anyway, I am glad we had this conversation. Go back to sleep.  
'Try a contraction now and then.'  
  
Istanbul, Turkey  
  
My name is not Stalingrad, but I never mind the soubriquet. I actually consider it a badge of honor. I'm of course a fanatical student of all great Russian shooters, from Vasili Zaitsev on down. I was actually born in Volograd, and became a hunter as a youth.  
It fills my heart with nostalgia to hear that the navy base in Madagascar was hit with the venerable Katusha rockets, even though those have little resemblance to those used in The Great Patriotic War. Most early Kates had warheads of only a few kilograms, and ranges of around five and a half kilometers, while these new beast actually carry fuel-air monsters, and travel distances equaling regular artillery. But hey, they're still Russian-made.  
Like Zaitsev, they are products of the Urals. In case you're wondering, the Urals are formidable mountains that effectively separate Asia from Europe. For Americans, it's convenient to think of it militarily like your own Rockies. You have the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, NORAD, all that, and you stock our key manufacturing plants up there. Culturally, think of it more like your Appalachians, I guess.  
Anyway, that's enough background for now, why don't I continue my narrative? I was young when my unusual skill started to standout even to my closest peers. I worked with our somewhat heavy-handed animal control specialists, meaning I got to take out my old SVD Dragonov rifle, and manually regulate the predator population. I was a regular machinist, of course, and tightened up the tolerances of the old gun, so I could shoot even straighter. The navy uses this great waterproof green packaging tape, and I just loved weaving everything together with it. I found a large chunk of carbon fiber from a dumpster, and replaced the vibrating wooden stock. I even resorted to running glue through the inner workings of my rifle. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? Well don't worry, the gun was designed to accommodate the presence of expanding fluids within. I spread epoxy on the butt, to better cut down on recoil, and invested in a 10x Leopold site.  
I've come to grudgingly accept that Germans know how to craft optics. I mentioned being noticed, right?  
Right, I always took the effort to maneuver upwind of the animals I planned to shoot, and I never took the orange vest with me, as so many others do. One must accept the hazard of friendly fire sometimes, right?  
Anyway, my bosses recognized how superior I was to my colleagues, who never put in the work on their guns, and made inferior shots, even with newer guns, and 'gee wiz' gadgetry, so they showed me off to the wonderful task of watching over our national Trans-Siberian pipeline.  
It seems, the Arab Unification Conflict hadn't yet cooled down, and the company held a shooting competition to see who could best protect the line running out of Uzbekistan.  
I was a preteen, but I worked fulltime by that time, though I attended a few classes anyway, but that's not important.  
I still used my Dragonov, a weapon fully capable of using NATO 30 caliber shells, which I did sporadically. Now this is an important fact, because most other shooters relied on the, well, better .308 Winchester round, and some even packed .50s.  
When Mr. Reberba, the pipeline's financer, noticed this, he had to ask how such a small child could kill a big bear with such a small shell.  
"I do it the way Vasili Zaitsev and all the other real heroes do it."  
"How's that, young man?"  
"Between the eyes, where the CPU lives." I think it scared him. It certainly distressed Lady Catalonia, his companion.  
"Bears have big squishy brains," I grinned, and pantomimed, making one great big 'O' with my hands.  
He lined us up on a craggy ridge under the midday sun on the edge of the Aral Seabed for some marksmanship demonstrations on a defunct Russian BTR, or more specifically, the red and white target painted on one flank.  
Stupid, really, because we all passed without any trouble. Even after firing a box of cartridges each, most of us stayed in the group.  
Mr. Reberba wore a russet vest over the cliché pallid shirt. He also wore his trademark mustached smile.  
"Well done! I knew I could count on Russia's best shooters to make that shot!" I'm not big on aesthetics, but when someone feels the need to punctuate everything he says with an exclamation, I take an instant dislike of him. Still, I wanted the job.  
"Let's see how you handle this!" Do you see what I'm saying?  
From a tent, I heard a young girl play a cello. She played a Metallica song, Sandman. I wondered if she appreciated the irony of playing a song by that title in the presence of desert Arabs?  
I settled outside her tent, waiting for my turn to fire. The sun began to settle lower in the sky, and I noticed more shooters sulk away in disgust. It gets old, and eventually, I elected to shut my eyes for a time.  
"Hello, are you one of the Slavic gunners here?" I opened my eyes, and found the cello player.  
"Hi. I'm Russian, to be exact. I'm trying to find work with the oil company out here. How are you?"  
She seemed thoughtful.  
"I'm well, but I'd much rather be in space. Most of my sisters are in space, but I most want to see my favorite sister, Iria."  
My smile matched hers.  
"I only have one sister, Ludmilla, so it's not tricky to name a favorite." She laughed dryly, the opposite of Mr. Reberba's belly laugh.  
"So, you like metal bands? I couldn't help but notice you playing Sandman." My keen observation gleaned the more genuine expression of surprise.  
"I especially like how they translate onto the cello. Are you a music fan?" My nod was subtle.  
"They sure beat the radio pundits jabbering. I listen to short wave regularly. I built my own crystal set, which doesn't need juice."  
"Juice?"  
"Battery power." She frowned.  
"Are you saying you can build a radio that doesn't run on electricity?" Now I'm showing surprise.  
"Sure, it's a standard project for novice hobbyists. It only took a few hours, after assembling all the parts."  
She's still puzzled.  
"But crystals are expensive, are they not?" I shook my head in a negative.  
"Heck no! They're worthless. I use common quartz in our radios, something you just find lying on the ground. The other parts are also quite common." She thought that over, skeptical.  
"I'll take your word for it."  
"Hey, you can find quartz on the moon, I'm serious!" She diverted from the subject.  
"Is that your gun?" Argh!  
"Sure is. Dragonov's famous SVD sniper rifle. It gained notoriety fighting America's involvement in Vietnam, and earned the respect of the fellows over there," I pointed toward Afghanistan, "when my countrymen served over there a long time ago." She stared with me.  
"Do you know the personal history of the gun in your hand?"  
"Sure do. Newer guns were already being issued when my Grandfather bought it from a friend. He was a cop, he was, within a big city militia, and when he needed a marksman weapon to pass tests for the sniper certificate, this is what he used."  
"That's how it entered your family?"  
"It was." Her eyes measured across it.  
"My family has no heirlooms like that. We believe war is a horrible thing, and family members are forbidden from carrying arms; although we don't mind hiring people to do so in our place."  
"I sense you think that's a hypocrisy," I ventured.  
"You could say so, but please understand this is necessary, if we're to mediate conflicts in good faith."  
"I see, so you're negotiators." She sat under the shade.  
"Many of us diverge into different fields, but none of us are allowed to compromise our reputation as unbiased arbitrators. My family has worked too hard to end the conflicts in the Earth Sphere, but all that could shatter if even one faction believes we favor a side."  
"Sounds like your family is a minefield of stressors, but mine isn't. I think you'd like them- not that you dislike your own!" She laughed at my slip.  
"Guns as heirlooms, powerless radios, and plentiful crystals. Yeah, I'd say it would be very interesting to live in your shoes. You have a sister named Ludmilla. Any brothers?"  
"Again, just one. Demitri. He's older than me. A cobbler, which means he makes boots for the country folks, somewhere out in the sticks where factory boots aren't sold. He's doing well, since winning a contract to repair used boots for the Siberian Military."  
"Siberian Military. There's a sore spot in my family, trying to negotiate the Manchurian Forces out of there has been Hell-and-a-half, or however that vulgar expression goes. Whatever happened to China, I have no idea."  
"It can't be that bad," I reasoned, "if the Chinese really had a foothold anywhere near the pipeline, believe me, my employers wouldn't have me shooting wolves."  
"That's true. Are you really that good?" A voice summoned me.  
"Okay, Mister Stalingrad. Let's see if your Zaitsev talk actually amounts to a crock of crap!" How crude. I really don't like Mr. Reberba.  
"I have my skeptics, but I did make it here, after all." I said a hasty goodbye, and pursued the vested fellow.  
"Hold on, my name's Khadijah!" She pursued me, grasped my hand, and palmed a card into it.  
"Gee, I don't have a card, I'm too simple. I know how to read, though." We both considered that funny, I don't know why.  
"Come on, you Slavic idiot!" Mister Reberba again, a real pain.  
"I guess I can contact you later," said I, pocketing the printed business card.  
  
Not long later, my tormenter had me on the crest of the dried lake.  
"Take a good look, you miserable Russian. Your kind dried this up, so the least you can do is keep my oil pipes from drying prematurely." He pointed at the bull's-eyed BTR.  
"That ugly son-of-a-butcher's going to drive through an obstacle course, and all you got to do is hit the twinkling golden halo inside the bull's-eye."  
The wind felt warm to me, but they induced the oilman to button up. It cut across the lakebed like a dust storm precursor. I imagined a wild- west director filming from a crane point of view, with no sound playing save the desert wind.  
I don't know what this place looked like when the Soviets messed it up, but when I took my shot, the dust had an orange appearance, like it was rich in metals.  
"There it goes, boy." The BTR puffed a cloud of blue smoke, and jerked forward. True to Reberba's word, a jumping halo, smaller than the bull's-eye's inner ring, illuminated on the flank I aimed for.  
I quickly recognized the jerking wasn't so random, that it moved like a man bobbing and darting in a crouched run. I got the hang of it quickly, and put a shot through the inner ring, and repeated the feat as the Russian infantry carrier made several laps.  
"That's enough, Stalingrad. I can tell you right now you made the team." Don't misunderstand me; I figured I was the best when I got there, but my surprise was that this trial put me above everyone else.  
"Really?" I couldn't understand how the others could fail so easily.  
"You made the top four, the cut for this security job," he shook his head, "it appears all your buddies relied too much on rangefinders and lasers and stuff, and when we baffled all that, their capacitors and junk overloaded. Your oldfangled crap kept you in the game, kid."  
I always prided myself on fiddling the old gun up to modern competition specs. I pride myself on straitening it out so I could hit a one inch target 800 meters out one hundred times out of as many shots. That's what modern sniping requires at the top levels. To do better, you need an energy weapon, or a wormhole.  
I hear the Preventers have a few such energy small-arms weapons stocked away, but I haven't touched them.  
Anyway, that's enough narrating on my early work. I know you'd like to hear more, like what my real name is, so I promise you I'll give you that when I get back.  
That's right, I'm leaving, so I can pursue the true primary objective of the sniper, ground level recon. Relay your acquired knowledge to the others in the outfit, and make sure they know more than merely how to shoot. Make sure Brankovic knows I'm off performing a real combat duty; I'd hate to come back here and face brig time for an AWOL conviction in absentia.  
-"Stalingrad"  
  
Italy  
  
I've had experience with this client before, and I know that he could handle most of the investigation practices in this case better than I could, yet he still delegated the task to me. I can only conclude that Trowa Barton is so busy with so much high-level work, that he needs to delegate these lower-level functions, such as my own forte, detective work, down.  
I appreciate the work he does, and will put together a thorough preliminary report as soon as I find what he has me looking for.  
The firm he has me looking into is Cassini and Burnnueli, a legal outfit I instantly recognize as one of my nation's most notorious, for it's associations with Mafioso types.  
I don't fear them, partially because my own family ties make me one the public would look into, should something happen, but more than that, I'm just plain better than them.  
Cassini's list of clients is in the public domain, so I come up with that really easily. My next step is logging into the electronic Interpol dossiers, giving me now more than names, but also information on charges, convictions, trial dates, sentences, representation, pleas, and even inscribed accounts of testimony. Usually, these dossiers are stuffed with hyperlinks that will connect me right away with supporting information, and if they aren't available, I'm only inconvenienced a minute or two.  
Often, to the amazement of new Investigators, I can find personal information like phone numbers and addresses in these criminal dossiers, or within those of more civil agencies, such as those fluffy sorts that rehabilitate the perps. (Parole agents and others in charge of community- based corrections need this type of information to find their charges, a reality that works in my favor many times.)  
All this works for me, but you know what I really like? This is really funny. Okay, so I'm sure all of you know the Revenue Agency compiles a scary amount of information on us, right? But we aren't supposed to see it, or are we? What if I brazenly asked Interpol to provide a hyperlink to the Revenue Agency's mainframe, just as a better convenience in my cases? You'd think that'd see the security implications, but I asked that they relay the question through a clerk to a software guy in a way that suggested I had authorization to the mainframe, okay? Everything looked on the level, so without thinking, this software guy typed up my backdoor for me, all as a convenience. I like Interpol technical support.  
I wonder how long it would take Trowa to create such an infrastructure? Well, in a very short time, I had all the "official" raw information Trowa could ask for, and by now, you'd think I had done enough meddling, but what if I impersonate the agency Chief, and ask the public relations department to organize this into a report on Cassini and Burnnueli's ties to the Mafioso? Hey, and mail it to ?  
(Please don't click the link. I shut it down after receiving the report.) I in turn mail this first report to Trowa before daybreak, and proceed to match the photos and biometrics data of his two perps with real identities in Europe, or throughout the Earth Sphere, if necessary, but no sweat, I'm far ahead of this case already.  
  
Author's Notes: another segment.  
  
Like my detective, I'm ahead of my own quota, and I'll put in the time to stay ahead, whether anyone is reading this or not. I haven't received any more reviews to date, so I assume I've lost a reader. It happens. I added Akai Jugatsu to my favorite stories list the very same day chapter ten came to my attention, a coincidence I'm pleased with.  
Although I wasn't around to notice The Major's two-year absence, I wasn't around at all to notice, but I'm glad my appearance on the FF scene has coincided with her reappearance, because she knows storytelling.  
About my review of Jugatsu: when I said I like casting Heero as a John Clark type of vigilante, I mean it. Clearly, for anyone familiar with the Ryanverse, Heero's actions in this story loosly parallel Clark's in Without Remorse and Clear and Present Danger, two excellent Clancy novels.  
  
In news related to the text I'm writing, Mordred Bartista will get to narrate in his own words the happenings in Columbia, while Heero further undermines him with a series of bogus air strikes and assorted means of attack. "Stalingrad" makes more observations on his life, as he tracks human game in Turkey. The Detective, one Louis Noin (who's first cousin of someone we know), logs off, and interviews police officers about "unofficial" business. Lady Une draws up her papers, in preparation for her duel with Duke Hapsburg, and two able-bodied Gundam boys, Trowa and Duo, saddle up a posse, in hopes of finding the trail of the Somali militants. All that may not be in the same chapter, mind you, but it's coming, and all those threads should be tied in before August ends.  
Okay, all those threads are likely to be in the next chapter, so far unnamed.  
  
Viscount compared my telling of Stalingrad's adventure to Huckleberry Fin! I'll take a comparison to Mark Twain any day. 


	23. Code Duello

If anyone ever has the patience and interest to read to this point, there is something I'd like you to know, and that thing is: writing the nautical portion of a geo-political (no emphasis on _political, or even Geo. I didn't name the genre)_ thriller is tough work. Throughout all my editing, included a total overhaul in early July, I'm still not sure I have all the Diego business straightened out. Did I retain any of the mistakes I thought I'd cleaned out? If you see one, please say so in the review, thanks.

A few changes are occurring that could alter your life here: I'm changing my internet service provider, and an address change will go with it. I don't yet know what my new provider will be called, but I'll keep "Typewriter King" in the address.

I also plan on righting more of the story, and less of the commentary in the future, but there are still some things I want to say now.

1.I've never read the Gundam comics.

2.If you truly want to understand Trowa Barton's psychology, read _Lost Horizon_.

3.I saw the series on American cable before watching the DVDs and _Endless Waltz_ on DVD.

4.I'll make a simple website soon, but don't expect much at first.

5.I'm going to type up an old _Star Wars_ fan fiction I wrote a long time ago (nearly a decade has passed), and consider putting it up on the site.

I'm wondering if this site will support pictures in my docs. Just testing.

Medellín, Columbia

"I'm working to restore my family, and to do that, I must finance the restoration with funds I don't have."

I actually told my mother that when I outfitted my expedition to South America in AC 187, when the first Gundam operation temporarily weakened the Alliance's foothold on this area. If you had ever met my mother, you would guess she'd think my idea as just another way out of- something! I can't understand what she believed I was running from, but I'm no deserter.

If you asked my mother, or my aunts and their husbands, for that matter, what the family business plan is, they'd laugh and explain the family drips in wealth.

Truth be told, the estate is a bigger drain on our wealth than they estimate, if they estimate at all, and their hosting and touring doesn't help the situation much, either.

I let them cavort about Europe and North America, living the "proper" lives of genteel women, while I compile a _real_ business plan with the common man in Medellín, Columbia.

Here I can contact smart people with callous and sometimes bloody hands, and we can come to an understanding that will maximize the profit of the Bartista Estate.

That Texas troubleshooter, the one that's bailing on me, can be replaced by anyone that properly applies an education, and I'm already at work filling his shoes with someone. I have no need to keep people here against their wills; except some of the hookers and cookers.

I market products, while my mother markets marriages. Who do you think really generates the money? I do, man, I earn it.

It isn't easy, though. You have to throw out a lot of capitol like stinky fish if you're going to build up a narcotics empire.

I started by casing the big fish of the time, a local don born and raised in Medellín, a fat guy with a degree in marketing. That intrigued me. For so long, we've been bombarded with the mantra that these guys were uneducated punks with little vocabulary, and even though I held a suspicion that the truth was completely contrary, the surprise of seeing someone like me already in place confounded me.

Still, I whacked him anyway, after casing his entire operation. He had a network with the opium and khat cartels, in Asia and Africa, and some contacts with designer dealers in America and Europe. He had some family bonds with the amphetamine crowd in the United States and Mexico, much like the arranged relationships in the aristocracy.

He had an understanding with the less chemical, more electrical, gangsters of Japan as well, though not so cozy there.

I inherited it all in a thirty-hour period, when I had all my elements set around the country. I do worry that karma can catch up with me, that someone could eventually flash in here and pull it all away, but the venture has already rolled back the family debts an entire lifetime. I'm also reassured by the world stabilizing so fast, though I must admit the chaos over the last few years allowed me to work my way into the new system.

About that: my relationship with the Preventers isn't working out. The Peacecrafts are coming after me, would you believe it? That petite dove and her crackpot brother are sending my traffickers reeling with that museum piece suit and a lot of flowery rhetoric, while mother sends me messages that in summery never fail to say "I told you so."

It's vexing, and my _Conglomerate_ partners aren't fairing any better, it seems.

And as if I didn't have enough to digest, Peacecraft "ghost" bombers are wrecking my hard-earned real estate.

But enough of this internal strife; this is just another problem I can use my wit and will to fix.

Medellín, Columbia

In my researching of the Medellín electric power grid, I discovered that most of the cities suburban power lines converge at an unintentional hub atop a hill near a golf course. Here, the power company's high voltage line rest on a tower built on this high ground, where, coincidently, the power men placed their set-down transformers for the low voltage lines. It must have been of some convenience, I suppose.

This hub is the objective of my latest mission, the last one before I check out for the night.

Bartista gave thought to his power grid, it seems, because the tower is within a guarded compound, taking up roughly a hectare from the golf course.  
But I'm not planning on attacking that directly.  
The weapon of choice in this case is a simple Russian remedy, a dumb Strela missile, with the IR seeker ripped out, and replaced by a small active infrared proximity fuse. I replaced the warhead, too, with a chaff dispenser.  
From a community garden, I pointed the grip stock at a forty-five degree angle, and let the missile fly roughly four and a half kilometers. Surely I could trust a Russian missile to fly straight into a stationary target.  
If I'm right about this, the chaff, made of twelve-inch aluminum strips, will land on the exposed high voltage lines, and temporarily close a pointless circuit, effectively cutting power long enough for the Preventers to do their work.

I'm pleased to see lights fade.

"Mission complete."

Two hundred miles up, low orbit

"When you pour iodine and oxygen together, you get a sports drink that excites photons like saccharine in a kid's metabolism," so Howard explained the function of chemical laser integral to fighting land targets from space.

"It's true that the chemicals stimulate the photons like mad," Sally corroborated, "but kids aren't really juiced up by saccharine. That's a myth advanced by parents that are just finding fault with the normal behaviors of children."

To that, Director Une quipped: "that's academically correct, but you'll rethink that, after spending some time with kids."

She'd signed away on the satellite anyway, and here it is, in it's first real application as a weapon platform.

It snaps photos of two known Bartista ranchos with a Keyhole 12 camera, giving the gunner at MO-2 a one-meter resolution image to target.

"I'm taking the shot," he announced, keying the trigger that mixes the "saccharine cool aid," as the Preventers have come to know the chemicals.

Once triggered, several megawatts of electricity spanned from space to the Spanish roof of yet another home.

"That's one, now the other shot." Another hit, another great big scorch mark.

"Counting down for the ETA (do you prefer Dorothy's, or the accepted version?) of the BDA (bomb damage assessment) bird. Mission complete."

Another mission perfectly pulled off at a hypersonic speed.

Germany

**Rule 17. **The challenged chooses his ground; the challenger chooses his distance; the seconds fix the time and terms of firing.

-The Code Duello

__

To the esteemed gentleman, Duke Hapsburg,

Your apparent disregard for my honor has been a great disturbance in my life, so much so that my only course of action is to seek satisfaction on a field of honor, one of your choice. I'll of course accept an apology, and a public extraction of your comments, with an explanation for your earlier remarks. Don't think you'll weasel out of this any other way. For a poltroon such as you, I only offer two roads; the hard way, or the easy way.

I am waiting for your reply. Be quick.

Sincerely,

Lady Antoinette Une

The letter, written on Romefeller stationary, arrived by way of an express courier. The destination was Duke Hapsburg's Napoleon Era Austrian palace overlooking the Lake of Constance.

The Duke himself entertained a trove of World Government peers in the wing built by Nazi SS men when the letter arrived.

****

**Rule 16. **The challenged has the right to choose his own weapon, unless the challenger gives his honor he is no swordsman; after which, however, he can decline any second species of weapon proposed by the challenged.

****

**-The Code Duello**

To demand guns or swords, that is the question. He knew the lady had mastered both, so would the demand for an unorthodox duel be acceptable? Yes, if it's not too outlandish, but is there anything that would diminish Une's obvious physical advantage?

Winchesters? Too lethal. Trebuchets? To unwieldy, and that's a siege weapon, anyway! Mobile-suits? Don't be an idiot!

Others noticed his fit.

"Master Wilhelm, what has you in a fit?" Nathan is a young butler, but should have known to leave things alone. He's crafty, though. See what he thinks.

"Nathan, take a look at this," the Duke handed over the challenge.

"Oh my! What should I do, Sir, write up your retraction now, or wait for the party to dissolve?"

Wilhelm had never struck a butler before, but only so much impudence can be bared.

"You retarded imp! You're fired, effective immediately!" At once he felt the murmuring in the palace, and the chatter of gossip. The Duke, himself young for his responsibilities, quietly simmered as his guests grudgingly gave their patron some space.

Such a duel can only be resolved with traditional dueling pistols.

"Courier!"

His shout echoed off the marble walls, audible to all ears.

"Will you kindly inscribe my reply?"

"Well certainly, Sir."

He cast an intense expression as he recited the terms.

"I gladly accept your challenge. See me with official Romefeller dueling pistols at the foundation's reflective pond at high noon tomorrow."

"Very good Sir. Where should I take this message?"

"The return address of the letter you brought in should be acceptable, if you have it."

The courier consulted his notebook PC.

"Director Une, Sir?"

No one spoke. Even the string quartet quieted.

"Yes. She challenged me to a duel, and I accepted."

The quartet resumed playing, and with the patter of applause, conversation grew more exited than before.

The Duke took the opportunity to theatrically sweep his hand across the room.

"I'm auctioning off the chance to be my second! Do I have any takers?"

That's the proper way for a person of class to raise money.

********

**Rule 14. **Seconds to be of equal rank in society with the principals they attend, inasmuch as a second may either choose or chance to become a principal, and equality is indispensable.

-The Code Duello

Okay, maybe not.

Turkey (not Thrace)

Hello again, this is your old buddy, Stalingrad, the sharp-shooting Russian from the Urals. I've followed our old enemy, who are Armenian, I should point out, on their eastern exodus, through a miasma of deceit long enough to discover they aren't running back home to Armenian territory. Instead, they kept moving east into Kurdish territory, where you guys aren't welcome.

As I'm writing this letter, I'm parked in a mountainous border town, at an RV park. I've got a tiny little camping trailer most western people would only find suitable for storage, but it's dry, warm, and reasonably comfortable, for someone used to trudging through the environments I'm known to fight in.

Through my sliding screened window, I can see kids in oversized t-shirts and bare feet playing with dogs of large sizes. The elderly are vending all kinds of things under the shade of a yellow and white umbrella, sipping margaritas and wine coolers, while a more firm looking man watches things over with a sawed-off shotgun. They wear hats and flannel shirts.

Most people around here wear jumpsuits, t-shirts, fatigues, or flannel, that's just the way it is. I've made conversation with some, but my thick accent gets in the way. Tell me, friend, why didn't it impede our conversations?

At least I can listen to others, and that has help tremendously. Turns out a border guard has family in this RV park, which I've come to recognize as a slum of sorts. In Russia, the slums are crammed apartment complexes, you know?

I promised to reveal my real name some time back. That name is meant for my retirement. I've preserved the name pretty well, so I can one day retire with it. I even go home with it right now.

I'll get back to my name in a bit, but first, let me give the license plate numbers of those trucks to you. The border guard saw three trucks full of men pass, and their numbers were as follows:

364-D215364-L319364-H3405

Just to let you know I'm not goofing off.

I'll follow them into Kurdistan at daybreak, and see about sniffing out their trail. How convenient that they'd hightail it into one of the few countries not formally integrated in the World Nation? Will this mean the Foreign Minister will come out and negotiate our right to follow them? I'll give you a head start. For the record, I know the'd come this way.

Goodnight,

"Stalingrad."

Somalia

Trowa kept one finger on a metal rail under his bed all night, so when Duo walked by to make a jerk of himself, he could preempt whatever heathen thing he planned to wake the group with. This paid off a little more than an hour before sunrise, when the resonance of Maxwell's bunny hopping ran into Barton's index finger.

He quickly tumbled out, and presented himself before his friend.

Who had a fire extinguisher in his hand.

"That isn't even clever, Maxwell. Keep quiet."

Duo held a vulnerable expression, mouth agape.

"Don't wake the others, except maybe Dorothy. The others can't really help."

The American colonist absently picked his nose.

"Sorry, bad habit. Help with what?"

Trowa elaborated on his plan.

"I've read the detective's report, and wrote instructions to Catherine, outlining the details of how best to proceed on that end. We'll be back by sundown, and I can pick up on the investigation from there. But for now, you and I need to go do some armed reconnaissance."

Duo reverted to scratching.

"But how to wake Ms. Catalonia up, without arousing a scream?"

Trowa scoffed.

"That shouldn't be a problem, if you tap her in non-threatening areas- best let _me_ handle that job."

'What makes me think you're indirectly calling me a pervert?' Duo wanted to ask.

A minute later, Dorothy schlepped out, looking vacant.

"Good morning, Ms. Catalonia, would you care joining our expedition?" Trowa invited, steadying the woman's wobbly condition.

Tension built at her throat, but in a moment, she managed to speak.

"I'll need a shower and clothing, but then we can head out."

She walked past on her own power, remembering where the shower was.

"I'll leave the door unlocked, so you can drop my clothing in, but don't consider that an invitation for anything more. And keep Maxwell out at all costs, will you?" She directed the question at Trowa.

"As you wish, Ma'am."

She exited the corridor in a flourish, something that comes naturally with hair of that length.

"Luckily, neither Dorothy nor I moved our packs from our lockers, so entering the sleeping quarters isn't necessary," said the circus star, all of three seconds before the Gundam duo heard evidence of running water.

"Don't bother her, Duo. That sort of hazing is bad for morale."

Duo thought his partner had gone a little to far with that one.

"What are you accusing me of, buddy?"

But before the junkyard kid could berate his bud, the stoic one tottered for the lockers.

"In L2 we call that a hit-and-run, pal! By taking a shot at me, you're obligated to stick around for my tirade! Curse you!" Arms crossed over his chest, Duo muttered a time longer.

"You think I'm some sort of predator, do you? Well, I'm not that sort of person. I grew up in a religious atmosphere, I'm a moral person, I fought for the colonies before it was fashionable, I, I… I wonder what Dorothy Catalonia looks like under her clothes?"

Hand on the doorknob, Duo looked both directions down the hall, peeked Trowa's direction again, and spied his return.

"Crap it, that clown's back."

Trowa seemed to stare beyond the junkman as if he's a specimen.

"Care to explain yourself?"

Be cool.

"I posted myself beside the door, better to make sure no one intrudes."

The mind of 03 took the answer skeptically.

"I see you're starting to think like a soldier. Heero would be proud."

"Really?"

"Yep. These are the exact actions I'd expect from a soldier; one stationed away from womankind for consecutive months."

Ouch.

"Time has turned you into a verbal sadist, my friend."

Trowa stuttered an apology.

"Sorry, Duo. I'm still in the process of integrating back into society, and my sense of humor is yet to be perfectly honed. Now let me through."

Trowa turned the knob, landed the lady's gym bag beside the sink, locked the door, and closed it, all without peering toward the shower stall, or inserting the majority of his body in the room.

"Case closed. For your information, Duo, her body is very taut, shaped athletically, without any disfigurements whatsoever."

"How do you know?"

"The mirror, and a one-tenth of a second glance on my part. I'd say she's able to handle her part of the mission. Sorry, Duo, I know as a soldier, you'd like to inspect your soldiers yourself, but she insisted on a level of privacy from you. Let's go."

Kurdistan

I came across the border expecting people to be even poorer on this side, but to my disbelief, the Kurds are running a cooperative agricultural society like all the nuts of the late twentieth century dreamed of. I see private plots, a bit more modest, providing things other than the staples grown in the community fields.

I learned one group pitched together to by one of those great big American tractors to run in a huge valley, and I've even seen a neighborhood silo-raising, like you see in a nostalgic American movie. I noticed a twist, however. True, they did lift four wooden walls, as you see Americans do in a barn-raising, but they added the roof in the new style, blowing a large balloon, then smearing concrete all over it. I'm always amazed by the simplicity of the new construction method.

Imagine, if you will, your ancestors doing that. You, being a Turkish Moslem, my friend, can now build a domed mosque in a day.

Take a look at Hagia Sophia for me, and imagine the Byzantines using the method. If they'd had such methods, they'd have never gone bankrupt, and you'd probably be talking to Jesus, rather than praying in a mosque. Something as simple as a new construction method can change everything, can't it?

The Sanc Kingdom is talking about installing a set of "planet defensors" around Newport City. Could this be such an innovation? I'm hoping it will be a healthy contribution to our times.

Maybe it's time for me to live as Constantine Alexander Pushkin. Or, if I continue working in the defense community, go by the convenient acronym it makes in English: CAP. I think that makes a perfect name for a deadly sniper, do you?

I'll muse over it.

Your dear friend,

Constantine Alexander Pushkin, AKA

"Stalingrad"

Anther segment of the Author's Note:

Today I have all the promised elements, save the detective story, typed up and ready to go. That part could take a little longer because I must be careful with that. I, of all people, shouldn't make careless mistakes when writing about police work.

I promise to put Detective Louis Noin to the top of my writing priorities, and flesh out his work. I'll try to write as authentic a work as possible. I'll also write more about Duo and Trowa's op, and write a somewhat _Rainbow Six_ type description of a Turkish police paramilitary unit in action.

One more thing! I'm sketching possible artwork in theory for the hypothetical website that I may or may not be working on. Hope everything works out.


	24. Shroud Business in Turin

Turin's finest frequent Luciano's Shield Haven, a favorite police officer joint, especially for members of the city's plain-clothed strike team, a unit of the "toughest sons of mothers" the Italians have ever produced.  
The team's chieftain, lean white guy with a silver flattop and a rock- climber's physique, also happened to be a quitting chain-smoker and confidant of the somewhat androgynous private investigator.  
"Detective Noin! I see your peach fuzz is one micrometer closer to becoming legally respected lip fur!"  
Louis lazily pointed a meaningless gesture, as if to say "yo," as he boldly took a seat.  
"Come to score steroids, my boy?" He again let the barb slide, and initiated conversation.  
"Someone really should work on the sign, you know. You take refuge in both a shield-" The team leader raised his own voice.  
"Exactly, we can take refuge in armor and castles together. You schoolmarm types always call everything redundant, as if there's a problem with duel protection."  
The issue always put the two at an impasse, something Louis could live with. His friend usually held the advantages, in verbal sparing.  
"So, Louie, what can you do for me today?" Just like him, to always insist he's getting the service.  
"Heavy Arms needs to know the associations of two perps he picked up. I shared what we had on the books, but I hoped to find more off the record." The cop leaned close, bringing his mouth inches from the detective.  
"Thanks for the tip." Louis proceeded to slide his manila dossier folder around the party's breakfast plates.  
"I know those names. They're a team, those two. I once had them in lockup myself. They tended to a train of mules running crank through Piedmont. Just kids, those mules, and these two were low level enough to get stuck doing that chore. They didn't do hits in my town, and they were smart enough not to shoot when I caught them. They stuck to the inmate code, man. We tried to shock them in the hole, but they held their nerve. They stayed in, no complaint, and earned parole early."  
"Recall anything about the legal aid, Anthony?" Louis highlighted what he and Trowa had found.  
"Hold on, just where did your Heavy Arms found these two?"  
"Somalia." Victor Anthony thought it over.  
"They never said a word while incarcerated, so naturally, the court had to appoint someone. They played cool, because they new amphetamines aren't taken seriously, and we couldn't prove in court that they'd mistreated those kids. In fact, I learned, they didn't mistreat them at all."  
Louis gave the officer an inquisitive look.  
"What do you mean?" Vic steepled his fingers, much the way His Excellency did.  
"Those guys were just moving around war refuges, kids that willingly worked off their busing fees by running the crank."  
"Where did the refuges come from?" Vic focused his hindsight.  
"I think they were Greek. It happened that a pocket of Treize Faction soldiers swarmed that way, splitting a Virgo column in two. Interesting thing is, only fast Aries and Tragos broke through to Greece. The larger Treize force escaped toward Sanc." Louis scratched his embarrassingly smooth jaw line.  
"That is interesting. I heard rumors Romefeller did that on purpose." Vic felt obligated to point out his own point.  
"You're looking at the wrong intrigue, as usual," he leaned in close again, expression sincere, "the way these guys had their logistical operation set up, you'd think Romefeller or Treize had been a full partner in the ruse. No outsider could possibly know Greece would see just enough combat to confuse authorities, yet keep the narcotics train going. My information sure wasn't that good."  
  
Maxwell House Stable: Mogadishu, Somalia  
  
Duo designed the stable to the opposing side of the garage, to better dampen the sound. Instead of the stainless steel he favored for his turbine engine monster machines, Maxwell cased everything in oak or yew, with a light almond finish.  
Dry flan-shaded straw crumpled under their feet, as they walked along the wide aisle. A thin Somali with a salt-and-pepper Rollie Fingers handlebar mustache offered his jeweled hand to Duo Maxwell.  
"Howdy, Mr. Maxwell. You called for three steeds?" He tipped his Stetson hat at Dorothy.  
"Why is he dressed like that?" Dorothy whispered to Trowa.  
"I think the VIP crowd wants to see cowboys in the stables, so Duo makes the Somalis cowboys." Catalonia stifled a chuckle.  
"Did he hire Ms. Noin as a cowboy fashion consultant?" Duo and his cowhand couldn't hear them over their own loud banter, a small- talk exchange that didn't interest Barton or Catalonia an iota.  
"Guys, come look at your rides!" Duo waved them in, like a base running coach.  
"See this gray Mare with the silver mane? Her name is Pewter. This copper stallion is named Lincoln. And this golden charger is mine. This mare's name is Diva, because it's every boy's dream to have a blond diva."  
The handler chortled, but Dorothy muttered something about "perverse Americana." Trowa remained mute, nuzzling Pewter.  
"Duo which one you want, Dotty?" She grabbed the reins of the ruddy one.  
"Why do you call this one Lincoln?" Maxwell shrugged.  
"He's the color of an old American penny. Abraham Lincoln was featured on one side, so he's the namesake. I also have a little foal called Penny."  
"While we're one the issue of names," Dorothy addressed.  
"Yes?"  
"Don't call me Dotty."  
  
"Are they meant for equestrian therapy, Duo?" Trowa led Pewter out of her trailer, mounted the saddle.  
"Yeah, the rehab center gets a share of time for substance abuse patients, and nervous system rehab patients get some time, too. We also have a juvenile delinquent program, or rather, 'troubled teen,' I'm supposed to say." Trowa snickered.  
"Any Gundam pilots in the program?" They shared the laugh.  
"I forgot to ask you guys. Would you be interested?" Barton grinned.  
"No thanks. I already take care of a dozen animals. I've had my fill." Pewter whinnied.  
"I hear that, but you're taking it the wrong way, Pewter." They rode to the gate, manned by four UN teal berets. Duo flashed his Preventer ID card.  
"Agent Hades. Good morning, guys. I'm out on a mounted cavalry recon with Taskforce Trinity. Note there are three of us." They got it.  
"Our radio call sign will be Trinity, and we'll only be on the TACNET if we're in danger, okay?" The quartet saluted, and resumed their laidback posture as the cavalry team rode out.  
"Excuse me, Duo. What's the chain-of-command?" Duo thoughtfully addressed Dorothy.  
"This is Trowa's operation, so it's his to see through, right buddy?" The circus clown curtly acknowledged that truth.  
"That's right, but we're all more-or-less equals here, so feel free to share your opinions."  
"That goes without saying," said the blond one, "but thanks for saying it anyway." They rode on, staying clear of the rode, in favor of the chaparral brush and rocky desert of the virgin wild.  
Duo traded his usual priest collar for a neutral scarf and acid- washed jean jacket. Dorothy sported her old dark White Fang khaki uniform, minus all insignia. Trowa compromised between the two, wearing highly faded khakis, and a little extra.  
"What are you doing?" The blond lady stared down the pilot, alarmed.  
"I wanted to wear my makeup."  
"I'm sorry?"  
"My clown makeup, my own personal war paint." Trowa explained the purpose of the scouting mission, a topic to fill the silence with.  
"Last night I had a few minutes to discuss emergency field surgery with Major Sally. It was just shoptalk at first, but you know how that goes. Soon, she went off on a different tangent, and we theorized the nature of the enemy. Being heavily engrossed in the healthcare of our own wounded, we began probing the medical welfare of our counterparts. I pressed her to discuss the facilities she used in the Chinese Resistance, and we applied what we knew of that, to how those resistance fighters would adapt their medical practices to this environment.  
She believed the warlords of last night's battle would probably have a preexisting field hospital place out of sight of any roads south of Mogadishu. We think they'll occupy a duck blind of a tent, on the south side of a large hill or dune, probably by an abandoned well.  
We spent a few minutes looking at updated topography maps, and marking known abandoned wells in the best areas. We're out here looking for a hypothetical enemy field hospital."  
  
Author's Note: Releana is practically the focus of the show. She's the one all the center players believe can achieve world peace. Zechs and Heero put a lot of stock in her. Duke Demail even appointed her Queen of the World. Yet for all this, at the end of the series, and even at the end of the movie, she's merely the Vice Foreign Minister!  
Who is this superhuman being that could be her superior? I think he should be a Hawaiian diplomat named Colin Kurasuwa.  
  
Mosul, Kurdistan  
  
"...No "Department of Defense" ever one a war; see the histories. But it seems to be a standard civilian action to scream for defensive tactics as they do notice a war. They then want to run the war- like a passenger trying to grab away from the pilot in an emergency."  
-Robert A. Heinlen, Starship Troopers  
  
Mosul is a city the Kurdish people have battled for many different times since successfully capturing it from Iraqi forces in the spring of 2003 in the Common Era. In the Year AC 197, Kurdistan shares the city with their southern neighbor, Iraq. The peace is unsteady, as it has been since the end of the Arab Unification Wars, a period that saw great horrors done to these non-Arabs.  
The proud soldiers of Kurdistan's army, the Peshmerga, speak a brand of English informally taught by American Special Forces out of Fort Benning, Georgia.  
Colin Kurasuwa, a man with dark hair greased into a pompadour, leathery skin, and indigo eyes, willed his 185cm Irish-Japanese body into this environment, looking every bit the Special Forces ideal.  
Those men, he new, were America's "real" diplomats in this region, back in the days of those Unification Wars. It's just human nature to accept those willing to fight and live in the trenches with you faster than those just trying to haggle you over to one's way of thinking.  
Colin appreciated this long ago, when he first integrated himself into Specials training sessions with indigenous peoples. He recalled the Specials Creed:  
  
Seeing that I dedicated myself to being a Special, fully knowing the dangers of the profession, I will always endeavor to ideals and esprit de corps of my Specials Unit.  
  
Professional soldiering means protecting the honor of His Excellency, and never failing his orders. Energetically will I destroy the enemies of Colonel Treize. I shall better them on the field of battle for I am superior, and have more heart. Specials don't recognize surrender. I'll never allow my comrades to be taken by enemy hands, and under no circumstances will I ever embarrass my leaders. Complete readiness will be my status as I display the fortitude needed to fight toward the object of my mission, even if I stand alone. I'll gallantly show the world I'm a specially fit and elite soldier. And thus acknowledging the fact that a Special is a more elite soldier who arrives at the cutting edge of combat in any environment, I accept that His Excellency expects me to fight further, faster, and stronger than all other combatants. Losing is a worthless act envisioned by worthless people. Never fear, for you were selected by the best to be the best.  
  
Several informal additions exist to round out the creed:  
  
So be it, Sir! Sucking is for the vanquished; don't suck! Stupid is as stupid does, so stay smart! Safety is the standard outcome of Special strength. Shriveling away is not the Special way!  
  
Still others exist, some profane, some silly, but the first or last ones are the ones typically grunted at graduation.  
Colin had trained with some of the men sitting across him, and they'd shared this creed, and the duties that go with them, and gently reminded them the Turkish swat learned under similar supervision:  
  
Silenced Weapons Assailing Terrorists!  
  
So goes the motto of Ankara Turkey's Special Weapons And Tactics Paramilitary Police Unit.  
"You can take them out, Mr. Foreign Minister, but I must have your word as the soldier you are, that these men will restrain themselves like proper soldiers."  
Without a drip of reluctance, Colin vowed he'd reign in the SWAT team himself, if they became overzealous.  
"Then bring them in, get them out, and clean up whatever they ruin." 


	25. The Soul Cage

August 1, 2004  
  
Bon journo, my readers. Today, Angelfire is hosting the site I'm progressively building. As of July's end, I only have a proof-of concept existing to tell everyone I have a website in the making. I have a highly unique picture, a link to the story you want to read, and not much else, but as anyone that knows me will say, I always deliver.  
For the near future, this site will be about gundams, but later, I hope to tie in more things centered on Typewriter King.  
A shout-out to the Viscount, who put in some secretarial work while I handled artistic details.  
I've almost reached my writing quota for August already, so I'll have plenty of extra time to build up the aesthetics of the site. I'm going for something really classy and quick for dialup, preferably something more than the usual fanfic-fanart warehouse. I'll provide links to those, but I have the opportunity to do something more unique.  
Please excuse the ads.  
  
About the story: After giving Zechs and Noin some proper privacy (who wants to read smut?), I reintroduce Zechs for a moment of shaking off Zero's effects. Then I return to the more pressing threads in the story.  
  
Your comrade,  
Typewriter King  
  
Havana  
  
He's been a brazenfaced poltroon to coordinate this dastardly plan of entrapment for his pallid paramour, but Milliardo Peacecraft, Prince of Sanc, felt the endorphin pinnacle of his scheme washed away by an unlikely confrontation with that unlikely portcullis.  
After all that merriment regaling his affianced woman, his soul cage returned in time to spoil his sleeping bliss.  
He retired away from his refulgent lover upon waking, scribbling a letter in all haste to explain.  
  
"Noin," he wrote, just Noin, "I won't be leaving you for long. I'll be by the seagulls at the boardwalk. My carotid arteries are running rapid, too rapid for my carrion heart muscle to comply with. I feel a little faint this morning, and I think some necrotic cells may be building up in my chest. If you sleep in late, I may already be at the doctor's. Remember my heart problem?"  
He struck a line through the last part, though he couldn't fathom the reason. She surely remembers the liberation of Sanc.  
'Well won't she be flattered,' he morosely mused, 'perhaps she won't take a literal interpretation of my note. I'm known as an awkward flirt, after all.'  
He left the hotel clutching his chest, gritting his teeth. Truly, he felt comfortable within Lucrezia's company, always has. No throb in the heart, no ache in the stomach's pit, not if she's a comfortable distance away, at least. She's his security, she's home, alluring even, but she's never been a source of stress. Would Noin be disappointed at not being his tormenter? To put the question in a more honest light, would she be hurt to know that she's just a mistress, second fiddle to Zero?  
Zechs left the lobby, muttering insane reason to himself.  
"This is a conundrum, breaking from the slavery of a machine, weaning from my dependence on it, while it's in some ways physically offering to save my marriage, only to sap all meaning from the union in doing so."  
He snapped his mouth shut, uncertain of how valid that declaration was. 'Are these two unions incompatible in one life?' A PVC chair invited him a seat, and he took it to the dock. The cerulean haze alerted of Sol's cresting over the Earth, and somewhere, a rooster crowed. Zechs brayed as well, sardonically exclaiming the delights of fishing. He cast the reel anyway, sat watching his lure bob atop the sea.  
"Huh," he smiled, "this business is resting my pulse. Imagine that."  
  
Turin, Italy, late AC195 (as retold by Victor)  
  
The old observations of Italian driving skills seemed to hold true this night. The paramedics had yet another code three, meaning an emergency call requiring lights and sirens, and our department needed to dispatch someone over to escort.  
The department has been rotating cops over to look after the medics ever since that ambulance attack near St Gabriel's. Some EMTs began refusing to go out on rides without backup, after that attack/hijacking, and worse, hospital bombing.  
I'm the chief of an elite plain-clothed strike team, so you'd think I'd be excerpt, but then you'd be thinking without the next bit of valuable information. The attacker was widely rumored to be a Gundam terrorist from the colonies.  
Most of us were skeptical, but we weren't exactly the authorities in charge, were we?  
The code three was for a routine smashup, and we did nothing but watch a few hurt people intubated and chest-compressed. Luckily, the meat wagon didn't need to show.  
We let the ambulance go on its way, and responded to a normal call, one about more speeding cars. This is Italy, got to love it.  
An old lady talks to us about street races on her block, telling us we should do something about it. Like anyone, I don't like being berated, so I level with her.  
"Okay, lady, I'll perch over here and control traffic with the radar." Her face soured, and she came at me from another tangent.  
"Can't you cops ever be civil? You go off entrapping people, like a slithering serpent." This is the sort of grunt work normal cops have to put up with every day, but I'm special enough to get the cooler jobs, most of the time.  
Anyway, I went ahead with this type of regulating when I noticed a Jag turn a corner with the dome light on. That means I've hit pay dirt.  
I flashed it down on that spot, where it couldn't accelerate much at all. I pinned it between my Diablo and a rotted billboard, and illuminated my flashlight into their mirror, an old trick I picked up.  
I ordered them out with the megaphone. My voice boomed like God's. Sure enough, they sprawled out with the syringes still hanging from their forearms. You see, I hunched that they were using the dome light to find a vein while they were shooting up.  
My unit carries lapel radios. I used mine to radio in the call, even as I sprinted from my car.  
I caught the first guy as he lay on his hands and knees. This isn't exactly textbook, but I whipped out my nightstick and kind of used it as a rolling pin kneading dough. I got him down fast, so I could cuff him and roll clear before the other guy had a chance to be brutal on me.  
The demands of the paramedics are spreading us kind of thin, you see, so we kind of have to find innovative new methods for sending out solo patrols at times.  
I don't like it, but as I said, I called this in before acting. The other "guy" turned out to be a woman. I guess they were a typical recreational drug-using couple.  
Another Lamborghini black-and-white showed at the scene, and we bagged the evidence together. Our evidence inventory gained the two syringes, and two small bags of white crystals. These two were on crank. If you zap them with a TASER, their hearts go all aflutter and explode, we're told. That'd be fun to watch.  
  
Recreational users are pretty easy to frighten. All you got to do is tell them we can accommodate them with some really nice rooms for an extended occupancy.  
We usually tell the male we can arrange for him to see a "real knuckle-dragging single male-"don't let the PC thought-police hear about this. Our secret.  
That type of talk usually does the trick, and as usual, these two accept our plea-bargaining terms.  
Before you know it, they spill the dealer's description, his haunts, his modus operandi. The guy on the street is always a middleman, a link between the smuggler and the buyer.  
He's typically more afraid of the smuggler than us, but then again, you've never seen our strike team.  
Louis, you know our interrogation techniques are guarded secrets, but let me tell you this; this kid wasn't a hardened criminal, just a refugee paying off a debt.  
He gave in, identified the two suspects you wanted to know about, and later testified in court, just as the two users did.  
We wrote this up differently, mind you, because any lawyer can convince a jury that plea-bargained testimony isn't worth the paper their confessions are written on.  
We got our convictions, and you know the rest. Put them back into the cage, will you, Louis?  
  
Kurdistan  
  
In the city of Amadiya, Constantine Alexander Pushkin tried to shop his trade at the unemployment office. He waited patiently in a single-file line, behind men and women in conservatively cut indigenous brown and white clothing, in a long two-tone hallway. The government clerk processed people rather quickly, normally just stamping a paper, directing someone to head somewhere else, and calling the next person. Pushkin flipped through a Cyrillic print of The World Military Review, until he reached the booth. The clerk was a man of barely thirty, with closely trimmed hair and gold- rimmed glasses. "Yes?" Some greeting. Someone needs to head back to bureaucrat school.  
"I'm seeking employment in the service sector. In the trade, I'm known as CAP." The clerk absently ran a search, found many hits on CAP.  
"Profession, sir?" The corners of CAP's mouth crested upward.  
"Assassin."  
"Yes sir, bringing up the list of contracts. A printed copy is a tenth of a credit." Things are just done differently in Kurdistan.  
  
Later  
  
In only a matter of hours, a certain group of Armenians got word of a legendary Russian, and rang "Stalingrad," as he's alternately known, at his hotel.  
He didn't know what language to answer in, so best to fall to the old default.  
"Hello?" The caller breathed into his ear.  
"Is this CAP?"  
"Yes, Partner?"  
"I'll send someone to meet you."  
"Alright, you know the hotel?"  
"Someone will knock on your door in fifteen minutes. Let him in, and he'll discuss the hit."  
"Got it." The line clicked dead.  
  
Someone in an Armenian wool sweater entered from a Prussian blue hatchback exactly a quarter hour later. Constantine rushed from his hidden trailer and merged into the sea of parked vehicles, planted a small Global Positioning transponder, zigzagged a spell, and followed into the lobby. He climbed the stairs, noted the elevator doors were opening, and crashed through his open room door.  
Seconds later, the knock pealed as advertised.  
"Come in." The man in the wool sweater did, and offered his hand. Constantine accepted, and offered a seat. When the Armenian declined, the Russian took it.  
"How would you like to be addressed?"  
"Noah will be fine."  
"So, Noah, tell me about your offer." He put his hands together, and gathered his wits.  
"Sure thing. We need the Cypriot Garrison Commander out of the picture. It's hard finding quality professionals willing to remove a Preventer. Can you do it?"  
CAP rested his hands in his chair.  
"What's his name?" Noah passed over a picture.  
"He's called Auda. Worked closely with a Gundam pilot during the war. That scares away practically every wet-works specialist." Constantine feigned musing it over.  
"This I could do. A Maguanac, is he?" Noah relaxed in his chair.  
"Heard of them, I gather?" He nodded.  
"I've killed Arabs before. Worked with them, too. Some of my earliest work was within the Winner family, in fact. I can understand why lesser assassins would opt out."  
"So you'll do it?" Pushkin shrugged.  
"Sure, but can't you think of anyone bigger to kill?" Noah liked the comment.  
"He's to be removed for a specific purpose, in this case, and must be removed within the next hundred hours."  
"I see. A rescue operation, I take it?" Noah blinked.  
"How did you surmise that?"  
"Fits what I know about you Armenians. Your loyalty seals your group cohesion." Noah approved.  
"He'll be somewhere within the Preventer's ninety-nine kilometer security zone. That's all I can tell you."  
"I'll find him, within those bounds." Noah the Armenian let himself out.  
  
The Parking Lot  
  
The Armenian keyed his ignition, entered his car, felt satisfied his wagon hadn't been tampered with, and trail blazed away.  
Stalingrad's device received constant location updates from the colony's global positioning constellation, kept memory of the route, and only sent word back to the user through brief, irregular, burst transmissions.  
Through these means, it avoided the usual detection schemes for finding tracking beacons.  
Soon the vehicle came to rest at a massive aluminum warehouse.  
  
That Night  
Ankara's finest eight SWAT operatives stuffed themselves into there truest bluest police helicopters for dangerous insertions, the force's Lynx "little bird" helicopter, a rotary aircraft with enough room to pinch all of them inside. Istanbul's twin little bird doubled the force, and both cities provided escorting up-gunned Super Apache Warrior attack helicopters, for a measure of support.  
Both cities also suited up their Bell Jet Rangers, seating six cops each, for fast-roping drops further from the "hot zone," for the purposes of this op, meaning a few blocks around the warehouse.  
Note the birds are full, and the authorities surely mean to extract all the SWAT cops. They have a license to kill, Amigo.  
All team members wore gray-and-blue urban battle dress uniforms (UDU) with their torso armor, Kevlar crash helmets, and load-baring harnesses.  
The Apache gunships stayed roughly two hundred meters ahead of the little birds, flying nap-of-the-Earth (low-level) through the severe mountain landscape making up the border.  
Warrant Officers, second grade, flew the little birds. A Crew Chief sat beside the pilot. Over flat terrain, the CW2 pushed in the collective, picking up more speed. He sees no reason to linger. He has a wonderful control touch, so he needs no cushion.  
Mosul is now in their faces. Stalingrad is blinking his strobe light, telling them where to land. Both little birds comply. The Bell Jet Rangers land close by.  
The sniper shows the paramilitary fighters through the cut chain link barrier, and let's them into the warehouses back service door.  
The lead guy wields a Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun with 14" barrel, which he uses to blow the door off its hinges. Trios of 37 mm gas guns chase the door in, accompanied by the filing assault team.  
The first guys in carried the burden of high-yield titanium or boron chest plates, 10mm MP-10 H&K submachine guns, muffs, and eye protection from the CS gas, percussion grenades, and Wily Pete burning in the structure.  
The clash of H&K and AK played out for a minute, sometimes punctuated by the sporadic report of the Remington's 70mm explosive Argentine-produced shells, or a potato-masher. Some sentries Stalingrad never noticed discharges some old .51 AA guns in the tall grass, only to succumb to rotary-cannon shells dished out by the circling Apaches. The revetments in both Lynx birds held up under the fusillade, and the victorious SWAT officers confidently loaded back up for the flight back to Turkey. The mission's duration matched the time needed to take a pee and wash up.  
  
Author's Note: Did I deliver? A "Wily Pete" is a white phosphorous- whatever. It can be a grenade or any kind of white phosphorous projectile. Notice the name comes from the phonetic letters. Do I need to explain any more jargon? 


	26. Compos Mentis

Somalia, South of Mogadishu  
  
The lack of tall vegetation meant fairly unobstructed visibility for long stretches, but low dunes and other optical obscuring features allowed the cavalry trio a reasonable chance of masking themselves.  
  
They occasionally heard the guttural cries of traffic commute, or heard avian clattering, but mostly cicada chirping.  
  
Trowa stretched out his senses, feeling for any sign of man.  
  
"Halt, that brush has been trampled."  
  
The equestrian trio arrested their gallop.  
  
"Dismount."  
  
They joined in conference.  
  
"I need a volunteer to probe the ground. I'll provide the cover."  
  
Without comment, Duo fell to his hands and knees, combing the ground.  
  
He didn't see anything, but a score of meters into the clearing, he caught a scent. He lifted his head, whiffed the wind, and followed. These events had a surreal quality to Dorothy.  
  
"Crap!"  
  
Trowa made a frantic sweep, but didn't understand.  
  
"Where?"  
  
Duo pointed.  
  
"I fell into a crap-can, and its nasty!"  
  
Trowa cautiously walked over, peered in. Sure enough, Duo pulled himself from a 55-gallon oil drum, partially saturated in a raunchy paste.  
  
Trowa carried a plastic canteen independent from his camel pack reservoir, for just these purposes.  
  
"Here's a canteen and a bar of soap. Wash yourself as much as you can, but hurry it up. Stay here."  
  
Trowa and Dorothy left Duo to lather up, as they carefully advanced the path, deeply crouched. The clown plucked a mosquito from the air, crushed it, and saw red.  
  
"They're close," he mouthed, looking at his teammate. She registered concurrence.  
  
They detoured from the path, snaking low to the earth, until the pair sensed conversation.  
  
Trowa cupped his hands around his partner's ear.  
  
"This is the hospital. Get Duo clear, and circle east. Go."  
  
She did, giving Trowa some solitude as he tucked himself away and pondered where best to put his charges.  
  
He found an old dried pine stump perfect for elevating a Claymore mine. The mine, a commanded explosive weighing three-and-half pounds, no longer carries the 700 steel ball bearings it once threw about, but tosses a far better set of flechetes, doubling the effective casualty range from 50 meters, to one-hundred.  
  
He burrowed away with the detonation switch, waiting for his team's signal.  
  
Morse code toned in his earpiece, spelling D-U-O. Trowa double-clicked his radio, then keyed his Morse transmitter once.  
  
He then keyed the Claymore, triggering a composition three brick that shoots hundreds of steel spikes in a sixty-degree arc.  
  
He can imagine what happened, but he sees none of it. The hospitalized gunners correctly direct their retaliation toward Trowa, but all for zero net gain in results.  
  
The barrage quickly quiets down, as shooters go through the maintenance of hot and gritting chain-fed guns.  
  
That's when the cavalry charge gallops by, dismounts, and clears a hooch. Duo finds the well, entrenches there, before the hospital defenders adapt to the sudden shift in gravity.  
  
Duo settles into the water pitcher, lobs some pineapples near the facility entrance.  
  
Dorothy, in a more compromised position, takes aim with an AT-4 tank-buster, and fires from her right shoulder, through the opening, where 440 grams of explosive drills to the dunes middle, and violently coughs sand on everything.  
  
Trowa re-emerges, taking careful rifle aim at Somali hips. No reason to kill them exists anymore.  
  
Satisfied he saw no one actively in position to kill his friends, Trowa set up a friendlier Claymore, the M5 Modular Crowd Control Munition (MCCM). It's basically an M18 Claymore with 600 .32 caliber rubber balls inside  
  
"This will sting, guys."  
  
Without remorse, he fired into the area occupied by his teammates, taking them down with the Somalis.  
  
"They'll be all right."  
  
He popped an M1006 sponge grenade into a resilient fighter's back, more lethally dissected the kneecap of another shooter. Time to offer an end of this.  
  
"You can see it's useless," he vocalized, "I'm now accepting surrender."  
  
Hands began popping up, emboldening Trowa to order them on a march to the city.  
  
The team remounted Pewter, Diva, and Lincoln, and herded their catch in the fashion of a cowboy posse.  
  
Duo handled a radio to hail the UN teal berets.  
  
"Hey, you remember Taskforce Trinity, the group so secret, it seems I invented it out of thin air? We're coming in. Better build a new jail before we arrive. Oh, and bring the TV crews. They'll just LOVE seeing this."  
  
Trowa just had one bit of advise to add.  
  
"Tie your scarves to hide your identity. Only one not of sound mind would desire being recognized by the press." 


	27. Ghost in the Machine, act 1

She woke up at six am, her customary time while under Preventer paramilitary discipline. The curtains weren't pulled shut, as she'd prefer. The reason probably lies in their settings, which were set under guidelines Zechs set while making reservations.  
This she planned to change, before going through it again the next night. As a young woman in a largely male environment, Noin, always addressed by her family name, valued her privacy dearly.  
This doesn't need to be tolerated right now. Her bed feels to be made of feathers and air, something to sink into, and maybe never reemerge. Her hand blindly groped the phone, a retro unit cradled in antiquity.  
"Hello, room service," she called, dangling the receiver near her ear, buttressing her chin on her collarbone, "this is Noin, calling from her room. Could you wake me up using the lights next time? I prefer my privacy, thanks." She let the phone fall by her side, and stretched out some rigid spots. She concealed herself in the bed's gauzy sheets, and modestly shirked from the window, carefully clamping the cloth over the convex portions of her front and back.

In some of her well-contrasted concavities, light successfully clawed through her flimsy shroud, gift-wrapping her waiflike aura for voyeurs to salivate over. She curtained the fantasy away in rapid order, then found the lighting, letting an invited light stroke over her most fair skin.

Privacy restored, Noin extracted some items from the closet, and set them for her future disposal.

_I shouldn't have left myself in such a stark position in the first place_, her musing counseled her, _but I guess a suspension of normal inhibitions is sometimes in order._

She entered the chrome shower, and reaffirmed her self-image as a waif.

Being from an Italian household, that had always been her family's mantra. _You're so thin. You should better enjoy our cooking, and try being more ladylike. Thinness is for boys, and tomboys afraid to develop._

But the exercise felt great, and my menstrual complaints don't amount to monthly torture for it, you estrogen tankers!

In the current period of social conservatism, Noin considered one of her primary duties in Sanc to be encouraging Ms. Relena to walk at least. Once those steps were taken, she'd gently recommended more...

"What am I holding these for?" Relena regarded the two peculiar ceramic objects hanging in her hands. They were heavy shafts with flattened bulbous ends attached.

"Relena, could you just try walking with them until you feel some real fatigue?"

Relena eyed her prospective sister-in-law crossly.

"I have a busy day ahead of me, and you want to tire me out?"

Exhale, inhale.

"Please, this is for your own benefit. Just walk with the hand weights for a while, it will firm up your arms, never mind the heart and breathing workout."

Pressed on a few paces in the Newport City mall, a distance equaling perhaps the fountain to the exit, when Relena turned in.

"Well I'm sorry, but my stamina just isn't a match for my brother's. Are you absolutely sure we're related?"

So much for that...

She dressed into her cotton tracksuit after drying, fell into some deeper stretches than she'd done waking up and in the shower. Never the trendsetter, she didn't notice her dark Nike sports bra bled through her white Adidas suit.

Running before breakfast is another holdover from her military life, something that stayed ingrained even on Peacemillian and Mars.

She passed Zechs' door without thought of intruding, though why she thought of entering his space in those terms, she didn't know.

_We're still two people._

She merged into the early bird crowd of runners, people that looked much in the same shape as her. They could very well be jelled from the same mold, many of them. Military professionals are cast by the best, to be the best, and if such feathers flock together, then here they are!

She quickly established her pace to be toward the top of the local pyramid, and within minutes she found herself at the top, with one other jogger. He wore gym shorts and an expensive stopwatch, and shaved his hair close to his skull.

She noticed scars all over him, many like those Heero or Zechs sport. Noin regulated her breathing well enough to grunt some phrases at him.

"Buenos Diaz, Senor."

He worked out his own breathing, until ready to reply.

"Hello, Instructor."

They ran parallel a few seconds, then Noin found her voice.

"You look too old."

He grunted as eloquently as possible.

"Si, Lieutenant, you were indeed not yet running Victoria, but you did offer me instructions in the Aries suit... when... my unit appropriated some early models."

Those suits trickled down to the Alliance very slowly, to the point that Aries-related friendly fire incidents didn't occur during _Daybreak_.

"I see, you were an Alliance pilot, where?"

"South PAC/ Indian Theater, so the coup didn't endanger me," he puffed, adding _voce sotto_, "nor did the whole war."

"Blue water navy, not core to Oz battle strategy. Sally told me this made her Gundam snatching a cinch."

"Major Sally Poe, from Alliance Intelligence?"

Noin arched an eyebrow.

"You knew Sally?"

He nodded, eyes fixed on his path.

"She barrowed me to test enzymes and amino acids taken from the Gundam pilot 01, in Singapore's test facility."

That piqued a reaction.

"Are you serious?"

"Sure am. I never discovered if I was a real recipient, or a placebo control. The project was scraped before those psychologists told me."

"Interesting. I'm Lucrezia Noin. What's your name?"

"Ricardo Roman. Nice to meet you again."

They clumsily gave their hands a shake, then went about running.

Noin slowly resumed pulling ahead of him, in her final stretch before cool-down.

She slowed her stride at the boardwalk she'd labeled her finish line, and spied her favorite acquaintance...fishing.

_I thought he'd still be sleeping. Oh boy, I know what that means._ The old pang of pity felt a little more tinged of derision every time. _At least he seems to cycle out of it quicker now._ She felt a little tentative about stepping out to the boardwalk with him, but thought it best to shepherd him from his pensiveness, or at least shift him to a lighter shade of darkness.

She set a light citrus lawn chair beside him, grazed his backhand, enticing it to have enough appreciation to reciprocate.

It did, by enfolding her fingers with its moist palm.

Zechs kept his eyes shut as he described his experiences.

"The fish are wise enough not to bite. I've sat here for ages, and nothing tugs my line. This sport, as some generously call it, is too... passive. I'm convinced old men do it just to have the tedium suck the marrow from their bones. Why would Hemmingway romanticize this?"

I think this is a time to give you a fair warning that Viscount and I nearly have a new _Gundam Wing_ work ready for ff publication. Is it all right if I pull you out of the story for that tidbit?

Anyway, that story is unusual, but if appreciated the right way, it's hilarious. It's kind of like _Seinen no Kekka's_ April Fools chapter, which is appropriate, since I started freelancing on April Fools. It has a lot of preternatural recasting, making several characters vampires, one a prehistoric beast, and others in a diverse flood of crazy roles.

The story's focus is on one side Quatre, and on the other, Zechs. This will take a few days before publication. I'm doing a load of offline work on the website, and I've uploaded my link page to Angelfire, and have more coming soon.

Okay, intermission is over.

Columbia

Heero Yuy toured a mapped out route of gardens, parks, vacant lots with overgrowth, and deep drainage ditches in the pitch black of a city without power. What he'd done earlier had caused to minor civil disaster, taking out all light in a city of unsuppressed licentiousness. He felt sure pillaging would follow, until Bartista's authorities compensated their token presence with a tyrant's rod of iron.

The rattles and hums of the mob had already begun in the distance, reminding Heero of some more of Dr. J's teachings.

"Once there was The People- terror gave it birth; once there was The People and it made hell on Earth. Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, oh yea slain! Once there was The People- it shall never be again!" Dr. J had been fond of Kipling, and could find something in the Indian's work that held relevance for his protégé's training. In Heero's case, he'd been the champion for those people, a savior in the time of none, but when they didn't even want one, he'd been a child of the gun. One he hoped they'd never need again.

The utilities people were doubtlessly scratching their heads over how that chaff had ended up in the wires, without Bartista's fighters first intercepting whatever had put it their, but that's above their pay grade, so they'd quickly finish that task, and allow the Don's guns and minds to figure out the root cause. The root cause, however, refused to be outfoxed tonight, taking himself far wide of any street patrol.

This was just like survival and evasion training: stay far from the roads, stay from streams, from light, from signs of camps. Nothing to it really, just follow those simple steps, and a single individual should be safe from sentry patrols. He found a nice place to bury the STRELA missile's grip stock and other reusable components. His entrenching tool struck the earth, pitted it. Rinse, lather, repeat, one could say, until the hole deepened enough to host the components- and the shovel.

He kicked the large pile over the parts, packed it nicely. Phase two in the night's operation was finished.

He proceeded to his town loft, where he entered via the apartment complex's fire exit in the pitch black. The window wasn't secured, after all his earlier work, so passing through the window wasn't a problem.

He set up his bipod binocular scope, a big 70x8 type for astronomy purposes, and laid eyes on his informant's workplace. Someone had swept away all the rubble, allowing entrance for all the Johns to cruise by in their flashy European and North American cars.

Guards were more present than before, a clear indication they believed whoever had killed their boss will return to shut them down. They shuffled around in tuxes, letting their Ingram and Sterling submachine guns dangle in Fast-Action-Gun [FAG (always accompanied by a homophobic snicker)] bags.

The Dorothy and Une clones greeted the Johns at the sidewalks, trying their best to bring them in. One made conversation with the Une, probably asking her what exactly she'd be willing to do. Apparently, she could stomach whatever he'd requested, but the price must have given the man a pause- a brief one, because he left the car, and walked the Une clone in on his arm.

Seconds later, a Noin clone relieved her shift at hooking drivers, and so it goes on.

The valet moved the John's car from traffic, and other customers sought service. Heero watched the security detail long enough to determine he'd be safe venturing over.

"Hi, when will Relena be in?" He spoke with the Dorothy, a girl that looked so much like the genuine being, one would think the surgeon would need to sculpt her out of wax.

"Relena is with a client this moment, but if you don't mind me saying, with the john she's with, you can see her soon." Heero didn't know whether to laugh or not, but decided to closely mimic the Dorothy's giggle.

"If you're in a hurry, I could help you out," she batted her eyelashes, working to make a sale. Heero scoped the security guards, mulled over the best route.

"She's worth a few minutes, if you meant she'd be ready that fast. I was planning on keeping her all morning." That earned a manufactured smile from the blond lady, and a word of understanding.

"Oh, I understand we have a new high-roller at the establishment," she cheered a little to loudly, "please, come in and sit with me, until Relena's all ready." She clutched his hand, and led him through the brothel's doors, where she found an unoccupied seat.

A jazz band, fronted by a trumpet player and a lounge singer at the piano, trickled brass and ivory. Dorothy ordered two drinks to her table, to be rewarded with two martinis that resembled lava lamps.

"These are just the best," she shared, sipping beguilingly from a straw, "our barmaid graduated from a school that taught good mixing, and it shows."

"Would it be a culinary school?" Heero asked.

Dorothy shrugged the question away.

"I think she was in a sorority that placed special emphasis on gastronomy, but I think that's just me extrapolating from her saucy behavior." Heero sampled the brew, spilled a drip at a jolt. His eyes flashed with accusation. His mouth parted with hilarity.

Her foot reached out and strolled under the table's concealment, scribbling a tactile message.

The names of contents rolled off her tongue, but the real content of conversation matched the intent of the corporeal correspondence.

The trumpet player switched into a Miles Davis rendition of a nineteen-eighties Cindy Lauper ballad. Men and their escorts gently swayed with the music. Heero appraised his drink, approved the flavor, and explored the subtleties aficionados debate over. Heero diverted his eyes from the distended hem of Dorothy's corset. The band's new tone matched Heero's tensing dissonance, as the Dorothy's cosseting drove him to distraction. He had nothing to do, except satiate the raging conflict, and so far, only Dorothy had an offer on the table.

Heero commenced rationalizing, his patience seemed too deep for the Dorothy clone's belief, and he seriously considered taking the easiest safety measure. Dorothy, viewing him as a regular john, perceived his reserve slacken, and bent across the table.

Heero didn't check himself, and freely luxuriated in her kiss. His mouth thrills to be servile to the coquette's sinuous, and accommodates it without resistance.

The protracted exercise singes his mission focus, but Heero courageously grapples hold of his will, and rides out the heated tempest until his savior/informant grants clemency.

He removes himself from the girl, and lets her taste recede from his senses.

_The mission is far from compromised_, he willed the brain to register, as he refocused on the core portion of his sortie.

"Hey, I know a great place to eat, so let's drop by."

"Sure thing, mister."

On the Columbian Frontline

The Ejercito de la Reublica de Columbia, formerly the security arm of the CVA, committed to more long-range reconnaissance patrols (lurps) that morning, at around four, local time. These were light infantry patrols broken down into companies, led by junior officers barely older than the boys they worked for. Most carried the generic light assault rifles most jungle and wooded professional troops fielded, weapons based on the old Armalite AR-15 design. The Republican government outfitted these "grunts" in dirt-cheap surplus webbing and tac suits. Boots usually came from North American recycle actions, a second-hand outlet browsed by skilled cobblers, who mended the leather foot gear, and resold them at far less than retail.

Equatorial governments just ate them up. The famed Armalite rifles usually roughed out a little service in the armies caught in the world arms race, and often arrived like new, or actually as completely virgin rifles, a casualty of mad "progress" in the developed world.

Juan Caballero, General of the Army, left his office to trample over everything the shelling had flattened, making the necessary photos for the demanding news markets worldwide. His beret rested cocked to one side while he gradually fell behind the advancing patrol. He didn't wear the sunglasses, because daylight hadn't arrived, and a corncob pipe would have been a dead giveaway, but his swagger mimicked that of someone else, a someone faded into history.

He genuinely appraised the discipline of his men, while striking the pose his image consultant said was necessary, if he planned on making this look good for the world. He knew and appreciated the need for good shoots like this, the need for recognition as a wise and powerful alternative to Bartista's Columbian government.

Currently world diplomats view both versions of Columbia as possible long-term members in ESUN, but views are shifting in opposition of the Narcotic State, a condition that may automatically mean support for the Republic, but that's not written in stone. Try seeking the spirits out, test them till they bleed, then divine a concrete promise, or just a nod, if that's all they're willing.

The Lightning Count's visit, so says the old CVA director, means Sanc is already giving an unofficial, and confidential, nod of approval. These days, he usually adds, Darlian's stamp usually begets the UN's consensus.

Caballero shared his people's optimism. He watched on as his boys skillfully used maneuver-and-fire tactics to outfox a ragtag pile of fraught opposing infantrymen. A born leader, a skinny kid crawling on his back, arced a pineapple hand grenade into the open slit of a concrete and sandbag concealed pillbox. A poorly survived veteran of the pummeling, that cracked and disjointed battlement.

Disjointed, that word sums up the narcotics trade about now.

Foundation HQ Bremen, Germany

German duels are traditionally considered the most lethal, violent personal matches seen within the European Aristocracy, so naturally, everyone of any standing dropped affairs of state to fly in and see "Duchess" Une take on Duke Wilhelm Hapsburg in a shooting match from thirty paces.

It was generally accepted that the distance was chosen so both contestants could survive the dispute, but all also accepted the lore behind Une's paranormal marksmanship.

The Germanic contestants dressed nearly identical under their capes, though, many murmured, Une's cape looked suspiciously shaped in the Andrew Jackson style.

Hapsburg's second, the Duchess of Wellington, rudely quipped something to that effect. Hapsburg, in turn, looked affected.

Both shooters pointed their right feet and shoulders at each other, their bodies positioned left of the pool. They stared one another down. The breeze hovered between nil and slight. They held the dueling pieces at arms length, just above the shoulder, let it down until the sights were lined up. Careful not to jerk, they both gently squeezed the trigger.

Both shooters groaned, but held their footing. Both held the pistols to the facing hip. Hapsburg, the challenged, waited to see if Une declared she'd had satisfaction.

"Reload my pistol, Mr. President," she instructed her second.

"Sure thing, Director Une."

He opened the chamber, and inserted another 70mm shell.

"If you don't mind my inquiry, where were you shot?"

She clutched an area beneath one breast.

"I have a lung wound, just like his. Now tell him we're going again."

He relayed the message, and Duchess Wellington rearmed Hapsburg.

"Wilhelm Hapsburg, do you wish to apologize at this time for your offense? We have both drawn blood, so honor is no longer a question between us!"

Both shooters began turning blue at the lips, a sign the seconds will need to interfere soon.

"I," he breathed, spitting out some pink froth, "will take aim if you need satisfaction... but yes, I'm sorry for the blow to your honor." He temporarily fell to one knee, accepted Wellington's support, and regained his feet. From thirty paces away, Une measured the duelist's words.

"I accept your apology, **if **you issue a formal apology in the London Times later."

Hapsburg visibly grimaced, but realized his panting wasn't supplying enough air.

"Can't you just drop this?"

Une raised her pistol.

"Please raise your pistol, Hapsburg."

Wilhelm noted the cruel smile lining her face. He squinted, aiming for the center, in his sole hope for a wound.

Une lined her pistol, sights lined up at her opponent's upper chest. Wilhelm tried preempting her shot, triggered the charge.

Une jerked, people saw fabric fly and rip. Wilhelm, fatigued, fell as Une shot for the upper chest.

Une turned her eyes away in a mix of remorse and disgust. Wellington sobbed violently, and President Murphy ran over to see what the paramedics could salvage.

Murphy clutched his own face in sympathy, hailed the crowd.

"He still has life. All y'all around the ambulance, clear out."

Another crew put Une on a gurney, wheeled her out the same way. Photographers everywhere snapped off whole memory cards of images, sounding like cicada mating calls.

Murphy shook Wellington's hand, assured her the medical team had things under control. She nodded, as the President peeled some gray matter from her face.

Microphones besieged them, but no questions were uttered. Sounds of grief entered households around the Earth Sphere.

To be concluded.

I've been thinking about how I can let my imagination run wild and still let the 56K crowd enjoy my site. I realize the current page of links may be a little hard on the impatient, and that's why I didn't include great links to non-gundam sites on board.

I do plan to add links to miscellaneous places of interest, like different fan fiction sites and web rings, great information archives, I want a Google News link, and perhaps some things so miscellaneous, I can't really categorize it.

I think I'll use the Duo picture for the "Welcome" page, and reinvent the home page. That image is kind of big, but I like it, so the best thing to do is let it stand alone.

I just fleshed out a media page, complete with media inside, and will have that up soon. I could make a blog, if anyone wants that feature. Is anyone out there? This site is still under construction, but soon it should begin growing in earnest. Viscount did some cool work, which operated just fine offline, that he tried like mad to fix on site.

You know what? I think these little updates could be the material for a blog! I'll just pick up all the old ones, stick them in, and I'll have the history of the last few months! I'll call those "the lost entries," and continue from there.

From that point on, the energy I put into a column "The Author's Note" will be a routinely updated piece of the site.

As they say in Paris, "Ciao!"


	28. Ghost in the Machine, act 2

Ghost in the Machine, act 2

"The English were in no way fighting from a position of strength- except through the use of their navy- but on the land, the English exercised an unhealthy reliance on proxy armies having no real allegiance to the crown. King George couldn't muster any real strength to properly suppress the Americans, so, the King hired the historically untrustworthy Goth Mercenaries and Indian Axillaries.

Perhaps, if I were placed in the same situation as King George, I would have hired the Hessian soldiers, but in a radically different way. I would have granted the German Commanders carefully partitioned principalities in German-speaking Pennsylvania, and I would have helped them install pacifist Quakers into city government roles, and that would have been the end of their involvement. But instead, the English made the mistake more typical of Italians. I would have installed a Catholic Irish army to subjugate protestant Scots-Irish areas of Pennsylvania. I would have setup a wartime capitol around New York City and I would have worked to park the Indians south of Albany. King George never tied his mercenaries or axillaries to the land, so they had no reason to fight savagely. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm the English Royal, and I follow the blueprints for my little war game, I now have the Continental forces boxed in.

As it happened, the British already had loyalists around the port city I chose for my capitol. Loyalist could hold Albany, where rebel influences aren't very strong. Indians, Hessian/Germans and Catholic Irish would have cordoned off Pennsylvania, and my presence at my capitol would have won over New Jersey"

-From "Duo Maxwell's" class lecture on the American Revolution, AC 195, on L2.

Somalia

Some in the popular "alternative media" branded the horse-mounted posse as a rogue "John Wayne" group; the more mainstream news outlets welcomed the outpouring of positive Emails from throughout the Earth Sphere.

News analysts of the pro-Preventer persuasion extolled the merits of small crack cavalry bands in history, some offhandedly praised their fashionable entrance. On the other side, the group's choice of aesthetics seemed to have violated all rules of dignity.

WuFei Chang just didn't understand these people. What do attitude and/or look have to do with the merits of the job, anyway? To his mind, Duo and Trowa had accomplished a serious intelligence coup, bringing in a couple odd hundred prisoners, and all potential harvests for microscopic operational details. With competent interrogation techniques, and logical analysis from the muses in Luxemburg, they could quite possibly paint the entire mosaic, fit the puzzle together... insert your own analogy, we've got it, baby.

He found the next news item more amusing. An anchorwoman presented a "human interest" spin on the posse's instant influence on popular culture. A small grassroots organization is selling freshly pressed shirts with a cowboy clown logo reading: "I'm a Proud Member of the Kiss Army." Online auction demand is exceeding the group's current level of supply, giving the shirts an insane value. The online auction store had to offer reserve purchasing to calm demand and maximize profits.

"Sure, the concept is funny, but for how long do these people want to wear a joke?" He marveled out loud. He changed stations to _Esta Bien_, the station broadcasting out of the Panama Canal Zone, and saw a split screen presentation of bomb damage to high-end Columbian rancheros. The talking head commentating in accented English explained that all the homes allegedly belonged to Don Mordred Bartista, the Grandee widely rumored to be the shadowy ruler of the Country outside of Republic control.

A representative of Bartista's puppet government described the attacks as a widespread cruise missile raid launched from aircraft belonging to the Sanc Kingdom.

"Sanc, you poison-pusher? You must be on your own product to believe that _woman-"_despite his excessive injuries, someone cuffed him fiercely from behind.

WuFei swiveled in his chair, being unable to turn his head.

"No wonder that didn't hurt, it was you," his onyx eyes sealed shut, searing at Darlian.

"Weren't you present when I brought up Heero fighting in Columbia on Sanc's behalf?" She glared at L-5's pilot crossly.

"I have spinal problems, Heero's actions are the least of my worries," dejectedly, he explained his memory failure.

"You have my sympathy. I'll leave you alone." She left him to his own thoughts, surprisingly, to his own regret.

"Wait a second, Relena," he pleaded, causing her to turn with a start, "how come I'm being kept out of the think tank? Quatre and I may physically be out of the fight, are we not considered intelligent strategists?"

_Actually, you aren't_, Relena didn't want to say, _after Siberia, all of you lost your way. You couldn't operate autonomously, and all of you lost your way until Quatre brought you together in Singapore..._

"Was I thinking out loud?"

WuFei scowled.

"No, but I'm sure we were thinking alike. That was different, though, a philosophical battle to find our enemies. Never mind that, I just want to bring my unique perspective to the discussion, so we can work things out. Could you talk to Trowa for me?"

WuFei isn't one to ask favors.

"Sure, um, right away."

Later

Quatre and Hilde wheeled into the cafeteria, being unready for walking about, but the others walked in. They found a secluded table, and exchanged greetings.

Trowa, Dorothy, and Duo had been discussing things among each other, to the exclusion of the others, as if their physical disabilities somehow affected their judgment.

It took Relena's stern words to shake them from their unnoticed bias, and invite the others in.

"Thank you for cordially inviting us here," WuFei said sarcastically.

"Nous sommes toujours la pour vous," replied Trowa. ("We're glad to be here for you.") Only Relena and Hilde, more social creatures than WuFei and less oblivious than Quatre, noted Trowa's more subtle sarcasm.

WuFei, not really a fluent French speaker, managed to mouth something about making this meeting "pour hommes," (for men), that wasn't caught by anyone but the circus performer.

"Hey guys, Cathy said she might show up in a few minutes," he said, getting WuFei's goat.

"Uh, I don't think so, Trowa. She's been helping with the humanitarian situation, where I'm supposed to be soon," Relena replied, not catching Trowa's game.

Barton stole a smile at Chang, then focused on Relena.

"My mistake. I did not know that. Okay, we'll see you both later, then."

WuFei wasn't charmed.

"Baka."

"Vaca."

Their insults were in different tongues, meant different things, but were synonyms.

(Author's note: I've been in department stores, and have been called this name, and I don't know whether to reply in Japanese or Spanish, so I say nothing, sadly leaving the kid to believe I'm not multilingual. What am I to do? -

Does Anyone want to know why the site isn't taking off? I'll tell you. I sadly made my pages in Linux Open Office, and for some reason, I couldn't save in HTML. And to make matters worse, Viscount deleted the OS from my computer, something I haven't rectified yet. Las tragedias de la vida. (I never said I was adeptly multilingual;-)

Well, back to fiction.

Even Later

Trowa pretty much had the floor outlining the intelligence gathering. He reviewed what he'd found interviewing the two gunmen inside Maxwell House, what Detective Louis Noin turned up in Italy, and the circumstances of the hospital raid. Everyone had a hand in recounting what happened at the Noventa Cannon, and they invited Nichol in to describe what happened at the airport.

Gradually, more people, such as the before mentioned Nichol, Rashid, and others, sat in at the discussion. Every time, the summery had to be recounted again for the new ears.

They would have liked having Sally at the table, but she stayed with her patients throughout.

"I think we can all agree we just happened, unfortunately, to have bumped into a worldwide network of illicit businesses. I'd describe them as a cooperative venture, one pooled together to finish such projects as the refurbished Noventa Cannon, the keystone of a defensive apparatus meant to defend their maritime commerce from Preventer regulation," Trowa mused out loud.

Quatre rubbed his chin.

"That sounds awfully expensive, Trowa, putting together such a far-reaching defensive belt just to defend the drug trade."

Trowa defended his premise.

"Insurance is expensive, but most of us will pay it to avoid ruin. I'm thinking they'd pull the resources together, if they feared the new government coming out of the war would take a hard line against their business. Indeed, as Ms. Darlian told us earlier, some, including her and Heero, are going beyond regular methods, such as bulking up customs. The reasons behind militarizing the drug trade are as valid here, as they are in Columbia-"

"Or the Far East," interrupted WuFei.

"Exactly. The truth is, they caught us in a time when we don't have the excess of power needed to counter their buildup. Classically, when one side is vanquished in a long conflict, the winning side will temporarily have an excess of power, and will usually exploit this surplus to treat formerly secondary hindrances."

"Right," Quatre seconded, "I remember from history what happened after the Berlin Wall crumbled. A state in support of drug trafficking suddenly got a visit from American airborne troops."

The colonists chuckled.

"When the world turned, it rolled on them."

Even later than that

"I'm tired," Duo announced, yawning, "tired and hungry. Can we give this a rest, please?"

The others agreed, save WuFei, Trowa, and Dorothy.

"Sure thing, guys. Go ahead."

Catherine brought some sandwiches in, leftover turkey, of course.

"What we need is a small force to our south to maintain contact with that "auxiliary" army," bemoaned WuFei, "because overhead imagery isn't going to cut it."

Dorothy reasoned that Trowa had thought of that.

"That's why we went out there, right Trowa?"

Barton looked at his hands.

"Yeah, that was in the vein WuFei was talking about, except you'd keep them sustained, wouldn't you, Chang?"

"I sure would."

"Then I'm sure we can arrange for a force to fight under your command."

Columbia

"Bing-shway."

Heero sat at a bar one morning in Medillin.

"What did you say?" His informant asked, taking a seat beside him.

The barmaid filled a glass, and handed it over.

"I ordered a cold beer," he sipped some thoughtfully, "maybe one day, I'll bring my Chinese friends with me. I have one friend from the colony that exploded in the L-5 cluster. He lost his wife and home." Heero didn't mind misrepresenting the facts a little. He saw no reason to completely volunteer everything.

"I'm sorry for him." They sipped some more simultaneously.

"Me too. I think I straightened him out a lot the last time we met, but he's still a work in progress, believe me. Gahn-bay!"

"Please bring us some more beer and some egg rolls," he addressed the Chinese barmaid, and led "the Relena" to a private table. They sat while Heero broke a fortune cookie.

"This is one element of the restaurant we wouldn't approve of. The fortune cookie is now widely known to be an American invention, dating back to 1919 San Francisco, if I have my facts straight. The inventor was ethnically Chinese, I believe, so I wonder what his beef is with these cookies. I'd ask him, but he'd probably belt me."

She really laughed for the first time since he'd met her, and it was contagious.

"Hey! This isn't even original! It reads: 'People sleep peaceably in their own beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.' That's George Orwell!"

Heero brashly threw open the curtains closing off their table, and shouted.

"Hey, your fortune cookie writer ripped off Orwell!"

To his infinite embarrassment, the waitress's ear had been near to his mouth when he exclaimed his declaration. She rubbed her ear irritably, then put their tray on the table.

"Open another one, Sir."

Heero cracked open another cookie, un-scrolled the paper: "People sleep peaceably in their own beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

"Any friend of Chang WuFei is a friend of this restaurant, Sir."

I just wanted to prove I could out-write Ukchana and Crazy Elf Paladin's fortune cookie scene. If I fell a little short of surpassing them, fine, but I don't think they can talk down to me anymore. How you like them apples?

The Black Sea

The small obsolete diesel/electric submersible had no carbon dioxide scrubbers on board, and no way to vent CO2 out, making life miserable for the nauseous crew. They ran a few lights and the passive sonar array, but little else for the number of days they rested on the seabed. Men rested with rebreathing SCUBA gear rationed out for breaks from inhaling poisonous stench. Alkaline batteries failed, to be manually replaced by another. Still, they waited it out, until the surface vigil quieted down.

The Captain ordered some men to slice open the vapid batteries, and harvest manganese dioxide from the inside. What is this good for?

"Take us up, drain ballast, rev up hydrogen peroxide engine, all ahead full."

"Aye, Sir. Drain ballast tanks, hydrogen peroxide engine, all ahead full."

But how did this ancient boat suddenly get a hydrogen peroxide engine, and why is that important? In the engine room, a couple of oil-stained techs poured the manganese dioxide powder into the diesel engine's gas tank, and mixed it with bottles of the concentrated antiseptic. Together, at the ignition of a spark, these chemicals created an awesome fuel source, pure oxygen.

The boat jumped off the seabed, pulled by the forces of buoyancy in one direction, pushed by the force of a chemical energy converted into a mechanical energy, in another. The crew deftly kept the entire sub from broaching the surface, while making certain the snorkel pulled in fresh air, and cycled out bad air. They lost all stealth, but exploited the weakened vigil, rushing at speeds thought attainable only by nuclear craft, for the small gap between Turkeys.

Soon, they reached the riotous layer long exploited by the silent service. Through the Bosphorous, Dardanelles, and Marmara they must go before breaking into more open sea in the Aegean. Noise levels and warm upper currants mask them the entire way, and the divers clear the net for them at Troy. They've effectively escaped, free to land the divers onto the shores of Cyrus, for one last mission.

Nicaragua

The crew chief caught a commercial flight to Managua, ahead of the ordered flight carrying the explorer submersible he ordered flown in. Filth floated atop the Lake de Managua, amid a dark film caking the lake's not pristine water. Barefoot children in rags picked through whatever the tide dredged on shore, looking for bits of metal that someone might find of value. Some played games, but most scavenged, probably not in vain, but eventually, that source of income will dry up, like so much else.

Back in the days of fighting, citizens freely dumped trash here, killing chances of freshwater aquaculture. In the process, the dumping at least gave these lads an opportunity to reap some quick money, selling shell casings, to be recycled, to the militants.

Miser regarded the business for the hours it took the Preventers seaplane to reach the lake. Once it arrived, he rented a boat to take him out to meet the two prop aircraft.

The motor chopped through the water, churning some foul gray foam, as it reached the rendezvous.

Upon boarding the plane, he handed the sailor his fare, and sealed himself into the tiny sub. Zechs' instructions weren't precise, so Miser spent the greater part of a day combing through the murk, before he shone the spotlight on Epyon.

Overnight, they hauled the monster into the plane's cargo space, and transited from a lake in Nicaragua, to another one in Panama.

On board, Zero demonstrated the machine's vitality by passing the diagnostic check fully in the green. Epyon's eyes lent the cargo hold an eerie green glow as its long slumber finally ended. It awaited the time when it would be reunited with Zechs Merquise.


	29. The Shackles of Youth

After reading at-kb's flattering review for _Of Blood and Oil, _I took a look at my total word count at and noticed that once the chapters _Bloodshed_ and _Ghost in the Machine act 2_ are posted, I'll surge over ninety thousand for sure. Not all of those words are mine, though, because I started a little running joke.

Like most people who have read gundam fan fictions, I jumped into GT and QS's SnK. I loved it so much, I slept only two hours a night in the week I absorbed it, because it was so awesome. But near the end, I grew tired of that one convention they adopted, validating the themes of their chapters with lyrics from pop songs.

To concisely wrap up this story, I got the funny idea of parodying them by using R.E.M or R.E.M not only to reaffirm whatever I was trying to say, but to make a cryptic statement about doing such things.

I'm sure the few people that ever read this stuff this summer never figured that out, and probably just assumed I was obsessed with the band from Athens, Georgia. Well, in tribute to the Olympians in Athens, I'll revive the practice one last time.

"...Irony is the _shackles of youth_."

-R.E.M, What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

Medillin, Columbia

Tanya: "Can you help me?"

Doctor: "What makes you think I can help you?"

Tanya: "Because you're a psychotherapist, you're obligated to help, right?"

Doctor: "Is it because I'm a psychotherapist that I'm obligated to help you?"

Tanya: "I'm confused."

Doctor: "Earlier you said that because I'm a psychotherapist, I'm obligated to help you."

Tanya: "Don't make fun of me."

Doctor: "Don't tell me what to do. I'm the psychiatrist here! Maybe your plans have something to do with this."

Tanya: "I want to marry a man like Heero, start a new life."

Doctor: "What makes you believe you want to marry?"

Tanya: "Being a bride has been a dream of mine."

Doctor: "Is it because of your life that you are going through this?"

Tanya: "What do you mean? It's a common dream to meet a guy like Heero."

Doctor: "Are you sure of that?"

Tanya: "My god! He's perfect!"

Doctor: "You seem sure. Let's move on."

Tanya: "I want to marry Heero, definitely."

Doctor: "Why do you say you want to marry?"

Tanya: "It would be perfect for me to be his bride."

Doctor: "What makes you believe that?"

Tanya: "Because he's so kind and loving."

Doctor: "Earlier you said you'd like to marry?"

Tanya: "That would be proper."

Doctor: "Is that the reason you have come to me?"

Tanya: "I come because I have problems."

Doctor: "Does it bother you that you have problems?"

Tanya: "Yes Sir. I want those problems away."

Doctor: "Maybe your plans have something to do with this."

Tanya: "My plans aren't compatible with my problems."

Doctor: "Are you sure that your plans are not compatible with your problems?"

Tanya: "If I want to be happy."

Doctor: "How does it feel to want?"

Tanya: "Let me spell it out for you: I want to be in a relationship with Heero."

Doctor: "Why should you get to be in this relationship?"

Tanya: "I need him."

Doctor: "You mentioned that you would like to marry him?"

Tanya: "God, Yes! He'd be the perfect husband!"

Doctor: Tell me something about your family.

Tanya: "My father was a mounted cop in Brooklyn, and my mom taught fitness."

Doctor: "You seem to dwell on your family."

Tanya: "I was ripped from them, and I'd love to go home again."

Doctor: "Do you really think you would love to go home?"

Tanya: "They were great parents, though I didn't appreciate that then."

Doctor: "Can you elaborate on that?"

Tanya: "I loved all classes but gym. Mom taught it, and the recognition was embarrassing."

Doctor: "I would appreciate it if you would tell me about your relationship with all classes."

Tanya: "OK, um. I loved art most of all. I kept a scrapbook I loaded with doodles. I told you about gym. Math was fun when it related to life, you know? History didn't seem relevant, but the quotes were interesting."

Doctor: "What made you love art?"

Tanya: "We were actually told to create beauty! Everything should be like that!"

Doctor: "Perhaps you could continue."

Tanya: "New York is an ugly city. So many ugly things happen, and we accept that as normal. I loved being encouraged to change that."

Doctor: "When did you first know you wanted to change that?"

Tanya: "As long as I can remember. We just lived practically, picking up on work, not caring about beauty at all."

Doctor: "Is it because of the war that you went through this?"

Tanya: "I blame the war for most of it, and everyone's focus on the bottom line."

Doctor: "Please continue."

Tanya: "I liked Treize and my art teacher for rebelling from this. They are my heroes."

Doctor: "Talk about your teacher."

Tanya: "OK. His name was David Castro. He talked about Italy and how they appreciated art. We spent a lot of one-on-one time sculpting. He also showed me published scrapbooks. That was cool."

Doctor: "Go on, don't be afraid."

Tanya: "People started saying maybe something was going on between us. One kid started singing that Police song about the teacher and the student, you know?"

Doctor: "I'm afraid I don't know. So, were you annoyed when your grades improved?"

Tanya: "You're perceptive! That worsened the problem, and the school investigated."

Doctor: "Was the fact that the school investigated the real problem?"

Tanya: "I was afraid they believed we were having an affair, yes."

Doctor: "Why do you say you were afraid?"

Tanya: "Secretly, I did think he was cute, in his own way, but you see, we drew nudes, and showed each other drawings. People could take that the wrong way."

Doctor: "Does the fact that they could see it the wrong way explain anything else?"

Tanya: "I don't think we were doing anything wrong. Just art."

Doctor: "What make you believe it was proper?"

Tanya: "Because beauty is one of the good things in life. It should be shared."

Doctor: "Are you sure beauty is one of the good things in life. That it should be shared?"

Tanya: "I believe it with all my heart."

Doctor: "How do you reconcile the people you hang around with?"

Tanya: "I explained all these points with them, and explained who I was. They caught on, and the issue was dropped."

Doctor: "Just to make sure, we're still talking about school?"

Tanya: "Without art class, I wouldn't have been interested in school."

Doctor: "Have you been frightened by school?"

Tanya: "Besides that incident, school didn't cause anxiety."

Doctor: "So that isn't the reason you came to me?"

Tanya: "I came over a more current dilemma."

Doctor: "Earlier you said you have problems?"

Tanya: "That's right."

Doctor: "Possibly any hobbies you have are related to this."

Tanya: "I like shopping, watching soaps, and reading jokes during the day."

Doctor: "Have you been scared of that?"

Tanya: "Hell no!"

Doctor: "Please, watch you tongue!"

Tanya: "Sorry."

Doctor: "I need a little more detail please."

Tanya: "I'm sorry for cursing at you."

Doctor: "You mentioned that you would like to be happy?"

Tanya: "Yes. I think I could be happy with Heero."

Doctor: "Are you happy with him often?"

Tanya: "Sometimes, when I'm with Heero, he'll be so kind and thoughtful, I wonder if..."

Doctor: "What happens when you're that happy?"

Tanya: "I usually become so happy, I make a fool of myself."

Doctor: "Does that mean you don't really enjoy being happy?"

Tanya: "I honestly don't try to sabotage my happiness, but that can happen."

Doctor: "We're being too brief, would you please give me details?"

Tanya: "Of course. I forgot to make a Thanksgiving dinner for him, and cried over it, because I try so hard to please him. Here I was crying my eyes out over a dinner, and he does everything to console me! I almost pushed him over the brink right there!"

Doctor: "Do you regret what happened?"

Tanya: "I wish I could have toned down my gratitude enough not to freak him out."

Doctor: "Is it because of your sex life that you are going through all this?"

Tanya: "Good question. I don't think he's ready yet, and it's kind of frustrating."

Doctor: "Are you sure about that?"

Tanya: "I think so. He always sleeps alone, and I'm right there in the other room. He never takes anyone in, so there isn't anyone else, I think."

Doctor: "Do you really think you would like to be in this relationship?"

Tanya: "Like I said, I want to marry him, doc."

Doctor: "Time's up for today. I believe we're making progress."

Tanya: "Thank you, and goodbye."

Tanya Lopez briskly left the doc's office, feeling purged of ugliness. She felt a bounce in her step while she skipped in her heeled sandals. She noticed colors seemed brighter that morning, without the normal phosphorescent lighting washing everything in an ugly cadaverous white.

She felt like a journey into the foreign quarter, her favorite district to shop in. She usually considered the expensive shops worth the pleasant ambiance. Clerks and inventory people usually looked younger and more polite over there than where most Columbians stayed. They dressed better, too.

She waited at the bus stop with a troupe of Norteamericanos in business suits and stylish trenches, while they phoned distant places and maybe stole chances to smoke. For most of them, the old eighties "power look" was back, but they allowed for transient pieces of modernity in their wear. They kept to themselves, not really bothering her the way she expected a pack of men to, until the bus arrived, with Bartista soldiers in olive suits arrived.

They then shifted around nervously. Some speed-dialed lawyers in the United States or Switzerland or wherever they came from, and text messaged prepared PDF files out. Some braved using camera phones to demonstrate proof-of-capture.

The soldados herded everyone in, and drove the bus to the secret police station, a multi-story condominium very near the foreigner destination.

Tanya sat beside a fidgeting blanco in raybans. He clumsily lit a smoke under the suspicious eyes of the troops, uncaring to everyone's objections. They let him light up without violence, and surprisingly, didn't confiscate the phones. She coughed at the putrid nicotine fumes, though she tried muffling her noise.

When the bus stopped, all passengers filed out and assembled in a row just outside the foreign compound.

A General with four stars on his chest marched in, hands behind his back.

"Buenos dias, all you important people! I'm the man those cruise missiles tried to kill! My name is Mordred Bartista, and I believe some of you have erred badly in choosing to mark targets for the Sanc Kingdom. I know how it goes," he shrugged, "you aren't formally within their security apparatus, but they offer you something greedy men like yourselves can't refuse; money for information. You may be floaters, informants, whatever the kids call it these days, but you're still marking targets for assassination. Now you westerners," he sloppily motioned his hand at them, "seem to think it's all fun and games if you blow things up at thirty-thousand feet, and it's not really war, just a punitive slap that doesn't hurt anyone, but let me tell you; you are conducting acts of war, yet you aren't soldiers. According to the Geneva Convention, that makes you spies. He gently gestured for everyone to calm down before continuing.

"Hold on. You misunderstand. I'm not accusing any of you specifically of this crime, and I do believe in due process, so I'll tell you what we're going to do. I'll send you into the compound for foreigners, and lock the gates until this war is over. Now, you can file an appeal, and if your case is exceptional, I can grant any one of you an exception, and you can live in Medillin like an indigenous Columbian. Any questions?"

Tanya meekly lifted her hand.

"I have a question."

Bartista raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, Senor-"

"Senorita Lopez, Sir. I'm a resident of Medillin, have been for a long time, and was just going into the foreign quarter to by some fashionable clothing."

The Don smiled boyishly, and critiqued the woman.

"Well, it would be criminal of me to deprive such a stellar body the grandest fashions, so allow me to dispatch one of my female bodyguards to shop with you."

He touched the intercom on the wall, and patched through a message.

"Sonya, would you please escort Senorita Lopez to all the fine clothing stores in town?"

"Right away, Sir."

"Thus the highest form of generalship is to

balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent

the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in

order is to attack the enemy's army in the field;

and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities."

-Sun Tzu

The cruise missile attack everyone talks about occurred hours after the power was restored in town. A twin-screwed Oz submarine, once at the disposal of the Lightning Baron, launched twelve turbojet-propelled missiles from the vertical launch tubes, and four from the torpedo tubes, all within one minute, and all while the sub lay submerged. All sixteen compromised propellant and warhead weight to yield added electronic countermeasures necessary for baffling air defense, but the shorter legs and duller teeth didn't compromise the mission one bit.

They brushed over the pacific waves, elevated a few feet above the beaches, and cindered sixteen coastal villas belonging to you-know-who. Beneath the waves, the vertical tubes filled with seawater, while the torpedo tubes reloaded with modified anti-ship missiles. These waited for the ship's entire complement of ballistic missiles to launch first. The particle broadcasts of the first salvo still baffled defenders when these hypersonic telephone poles arced the reentry "wave course," and splintered apart into hundreds of guided sub munitions, all directed by a network of foolproof radio beacons, less vulnerable to jamming than GPS.

Luckily, the ballistic attack outraced Bartista's ABM network, making interception close to impossible. All twenty-four missiles dispensed thirty odd decoy balloons to mask the 400 hundred two-ton bombs. 4,160 guided bombs blanketed even the most insignificant military target; many to be intercepted by crack gunners, others failed to do anything of value, unreliable Republica intelligence rendered others useless, some resilient targets held up, and some bombs just plain missed. Nevertheless, the attacks were to _La Violencia_ shock and awe as advertised.

Countryside sentry posts, as marked by Heero Yuy, disappeared. Known outposts exploded. All known Bartista real estate faced redundant pounding. Practically the Don's entire war machine bared the scares of bomb damage. After those four anti-ship missiles buried holes in the Cancer pins along the coast, the sub had all but cleared the way for the Republic's success.

"Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist

only seeks battle after the victory has been won,

whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights

and afterwards looks for victory."

-Sun Tzu

Juan Caballero, General of the Army, learned of the pummeling shortly after holding back the enemy's first real offensive thrust since the capture of _Gemini's_ pilot. The couter-offensive had started as either a bungled ambush or a meeting engagement with an unusually large light infantry force of Bartista regulars. Soon, Serpents melted out of the jungle, and artillery couldn't contain their frontal assault. The men doggedly humped it to their firebase pillboxes, and slowly recouped with help from fixed turrets and automated LEO immobile-dolls.

Juan observed that the immobile-dolls, so called because cables fixed them to computing done from the rear, only operated from the waist up.

He'd personally worked hard to train up their NCO corp.

"Master Guns, radio all the air support you can, or we'll loose the front!" Juan jogged over even as the Master Gunnery Sergeant requested high priority over all airborne units.

"Aries ETA under a minute Sir, now please allow me to direct artillery!"

Caballero dropped into his chair in the field bunker, and untangled himself from all the wiring. Ground level electronic sentries revealed a jagged string of crouched or prone Serpents giving fire support for a crawling mass of ragged sappers, a brave lot capriciously thrown together as a stopgap measure.

Stopgap they may be, but the serpents supported enough to push them close, and after an apparent resumption of judgment, obscure the enemy's senses with lobbed crackers and smoke.

Burrowing charges detonated, clearing earthen and sandbag barriers, and scattering the trench line.

Crack submachine gunners swept the trenches with their lethal brooms, after initially chunking grenades or satchels. It looked like the line might fall, but a fair dose of heavy machine guns, intense artillery support, and Claymore mines placed by competent non-comms like Master Guns, held the line.

It turned out the Serpents couldn't dislodge the immobile-doll Leos, the units flawlessly aiming dobber guns at the center of mass. After a spirited advance, the enemy ordered a withdrawal.

Heero Yuy distractedly noted the muffled chaos outside, as he diligently regarded every inch of Miss Relena's exposed torso.

"I found it. They keep the implant in a place they've operated before, under your augmented left breast." She made a noncommittal grunt, idly fondling loose strands of hair.

"I'm surgically skilled enough to remove it, when the time comes," said Heero, "but first you'll need to swap this phone with a bosses one in the brothel."

"Relena" tensed enough for Heero to feel it through his fingertips.

"This is more dangerous than anything I've asked you to do yet, but if you're patient enough to let the opportunity present itself, I see no reason why you should seem suspicious.

She raised herself on her elbows.

"Let me review your plan: I'm supposed to ask for a cellular phone, because, according to the legend you want me spilling to them, you're so in to me, you want to contact me all the time via the telephone."

Heero nodded.

"Right, because I'm such a player, I want you coming on my command, and/or I just want to talk dirty to you."

She looked skeptical.

"What, no john has ever been interested in phoning girls before?"

She relented.

"I'll try it. So this is a digital phone, Bluetooth enabled, like the others, and carries a virus inside. Alright, so when do I go back?"

Heero reclined beside her.

"You can get some sleep first- don't worry, I won't bother you."

I asked my dog what he thought the best in man  
He said, "The love you dispense to me twice daily from a can."  
I said, "Why do you think my question funny?  
And where would you be without my money?"  
I said, "There may be some quality in us you must treasure."  
"It's despair," he said, "of which your money is the measure."

Walk like a dog  
Like anybody can  
Walk like a dog  
Like anybody can

"What about our politics, philosophy, our history?"  
He said, "If there is something admirable in these it is a mystery."  
"But there must be something in our system tell me at your leisure."  
"It's despair," he said, "of which your borders are the measure."

Walk like a dog  
Talk like a man  
Walk like a dog  
Like anybody can

Walk like a dog  
Talk like a man  
Walk like a dog  
Like anybody can

"What about technology, computers, nuclear fission?"  
"I'm terrified of radiation, hate the television."  
I said, "There must be something in our scientific treasure."  
"It's despair," he said, "of which your weapons are the measure."

"Feed me, you can beat me. I will love you till I die.  
But don't ask for admiration and don't ever ask me why."  
I said, "Why wait till now to demonstrate displeasure?"  
"It's despair," he said, "of which my silence was the measure."

Walk like a dog  
Talk like a man  
Walk like a dog  
Like anybody can

Walk like a dog  
Talk like a man  
Walk like a dog  
Like anybody can

-Sting, **_Conversation With A Dog._** Now those are some real song lyrics!

Heero woke up still feeling tired late in the afternoon. She was gone, he noticed, something he fully expected. He sluggishly dragged his secret project from the closet, and set to work on it.

He cracked open the bomb case, a steel mk82 shell purchased locally from a scrap yard. Odd how most people assume weapons sold as scrap will be beaten into plow sheers, but why should that be? A plumbing supply store sold him all the copper coil he needed, the Home Depot sold him all the concrete sacks he asked for, and the Radio Shack catalogue sold him the high voltage capacitor bank. The capacitor and copper wiring aren't normal features in bombs, for conventional bombs don't require large magnetic fields. So what type of bomb does depend on this?

He carefully molded the concrete, a nonconductive stabilizing material, around all the added electronic components, so they'll survive the first few microseconds of the blast. He used some of his last fast-burning composition three to power the device. Steel panels to the opposing walls of the plastic explosive served as the "explosive lens" for throwing the slow-burning charge, the bigger explosive, in the right direction, toward the peaked electromagnetic field.

Heero chose to use only one timer to set the timeline for all the complex actions his bomb would take. He decided the internal clock of an early Pentium processor could do the task, and fashioned himself programming the synchronized actions to run as smoothly as normal desktop operations. The thought of reliability beyond a watchmaker's perfection made him smile.

He carefully checked and rechecked measurements to be certain the wiring to all three were equidistant, so current would reach all three that the same time. Satisfied, he repacked the bomb case, and put it away.

Time to call the informant.

She was born Janice, but came to accept being called Relena by all the other girls. Dorothy, who wasn't really Dorothy, either, asked if they'd had an okay time. Janice, who forced herself to be Relena, freely described most details of what happened in the carriage ride and at the Chinese restaurant, but spun the likely story about the apartment. That last part was usually the general picture from their "escort dates," so she understandably didn't have much to say about it, and one could reason Dorothy wouldn't want to hear much about it. However, she did have some questions.

"He seems to really get a kick out of you, spoiling you, always coming back. Is he nice?"  
This line of questioning wasn't unusual. All the girls have regulars come in at some point in their careers.

"Yeah, he's a nice guy for a john. He almost treats me like a regular girlfriend."

Relena didn't see what was funny, but Dorothy looked amused.

"What? He is nice. He isn't into anything weird, if that's what you're thinking."

Dorothy shook her head.

"Okay, girlfriend, I overheard that jazz about the cellular phone. What's that about?"

Relena gulped, wiped her palms on her skirt.

"He just asked for me to get a phone, so he can call me in from now on."

Dorothy's expression turned sour.

"I knew it! He's so interested in the Relena fantasy, that's all he wanted from us- and here I was this morning, practically falling into his lap! Probably halfway scared him off!"

She stormed off, muttering about how stupid she was. Relena sighed, and some other girls murmured some comments, followed by giggling.

"Oh boy, I'm sure it was no big deal." Relena tried passing time in the exercise gym, focusing on the treadmill. She worked out her nervous instincts with a high incline full run, while her eyes focused on the television set above, showing a widely syndicated sitcom from a few decades ago. The material seemed fresh to her, and she felt in high spirits when she disrobed in the shower. After exploiting all the massaging functions, Relena, soon to be Janice again, dressed in a dark pantsuit that the real Relena might wear in a formal setting. Most johns didn't appreciate the professional Relena Darlian look, almost to a man preferring the Queen Relena garb, but Heero seemed truly different. He seemed to genuinely prefer strong and intelligent women.

He once voiced his disgust at skyscraping heels, and said long nails make him cringe, so she outfitted her feet with white loafers, and went out to the apartment, but first, she gave a boss Heero's fee.

"He wanted me right back for the evening. Ciao!"

Heero barraged her with questions about what happened between her and the co-workers, and Dorothy came up. Heero thought this through, and turned a cunning smile.

"Why don't you call her and let her know I have no hard feelings?"

"Huh? What good will that do?"

"Invite her up," he exitedly dug into a safe, and removed a thick envelope of money, "Take this over, and place an order for both of you for the next week. You'll need to bring over outfits and things for the stay over."

The Relena clone looked confused, and a little hurt.

"But why? How is this part of your plan?"

Heero sensed she suspected a betrayal, so tried to set her straight.

"If I'm going to get you out, I might as well bring her along, too. Don't tell me it's unusual for two girls to be picked up by the same client! I figure they won't bother looking for either one of you if you're paid up for a week."

Her eyes indicated relief, but she looked skeptical.

"I'm not sure she'd want to come a long."

Heero found his hands on her shoulders.

"That doesn't matter, because she'll get to choose to come back later if she wants. Remember that most people don't like shackles, but some actually go for that. Now, take this money, and pick up a girl for me.

Since this is a Thanksgiving story, do I have anything to be thankful for? Yes, in fact, I'm thankful that spoons guy with the rightwing website didn't review my writing. Why do I bring this up? Well, I waited a year to buy _Teeth of the Tiger_ on paperback, and maybe a quarter way through the book, I thought "this is kind of lame. Did others think it's this lame?" So I googled "What's good about Teeth of the Tiger?" The Spoons review came up top, and I thought he thought exactly what I thought about it. (Does this sentence need reworked?)

I read reviews from Amazon, and those readers also thought the book sucked, but for wildly different reasons. I soon discovered these reviewers were complete crackpots- they were angry Clancy books were biased against bad guys!

It appears the world is full of softheaded people that think its wrong to paint, say, Pope assassination plotters, as morally corrupt. Trust me, if you're trying to kill John Paul the second, you are evil, and that is an absolute. Call me bigoted, but if right and wrong don't exist, the criminal justice system should be disbanded.

That reminds me: I'm glad most of us have enough sense to realize we should punish bad behavior, and not worry about what they might think about us.

"Before you consider buying this book, there are a few things you should know about it: First of all, it sucks." -"Spoons Book Club"** September 07, 2003**

I can't be fair. It wasn't time to retire Jack Ryan. He still had another term as President to fulfill. Robby is just killed off with little explanation, something fans of the Mississippi pilot don't deserve. That turd Kealty runs the country, and we don't know how he recouped his reputation. All this is bad enough, but what makes it worse is that this follows a book that was really just a rehash of _Day of The Jackal_ with the real life _Operation Mincemeat_ stirred in. I liked _Red Rabbit_ anyway, but I did wait for that one to show in the library. Enough of this dragging in the dirt, I'll just write something better.

Columbia

The round trip only took a few minutes, and before the landlord could stop thinking about the blond's exit, she came back with another piquant blond, far more dangerous looking than the first. They walked arm-in-arm to that young punk's room, just as he expected, and sealed the door. Got to up that player's rent.

Tactical lesson: It is no hassle at all to get a richly paid prostitute in a compromising position. Without any exertion, Heero cleanly stabbed a syringe full of sedatives into Dorothy's rump, and after a minute of waiting, the girl went completely limp.

"So what now?" Asked Relena- no- Janice, admonishing Heero with her tone. "And were you enjoying yourself there?" To that, he offered an exaggerated shrug.

"I used to say there is nothing wrong with acting on your emotions, but no, I wasn't. This is my job. As for the first question, I'll call Tanya, and have her bring the car."

"Who's Tanya?"

"My maid. She takes care of my house in the suburbs."

"Is she attractive?"

"Are you jealous?"

"Is she?"

"She's not a _one_."

"How much higher than a one?"

"A quarter to nine, but what does that matter?"

"That's what I'd like to know, what does that matter?"

"Do you have more than a professional interest in me, Relena?"

"Janice, that's the name I was born with."

"Do you find that fitting, being Janus-faced toward your employers?"

"So, you know who my namesake is?"

"Strange I should remember that. Dr. J used to speak of a secret society by that name..."

"Excuse me?"

"Pardon me. That comes from way back in my past."

"Sorry."

"It's okay, but isn't this strange how we're having this free association thing going on?"

"Yeah! This is weirding me out. You were going to make that phone call to your sweetie?"

Heero did a double take.

"Right, you're talking about the maid that is a nine-and-three-quarters. I'll call Tanya right away... unless she's Tonya right now."

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

He carried the phone into the bathroom, and came out a minute later.

"I could curse myself for not paying more attention, but Bartista has been rounding up people since this morning. Tanya can get through, because she has one of the Don's personal guards escorting her. Long story. But it will be difficult to explain the three of us together. Could you pretend to be a good friend of Tanya's on sight?"

If she could pretend her clients were studs, she could pretend anything...

"Sure, anything for you honey, because you're so strong and handsome, I'd do anything for you, for enough money-"

"That's enough, I get the picture. Miss Dorothy here is wasted, that shouldn't be a stretch. And I, of course, am the man around house. I guess on second inspection, it isn't so strange that one guy and several girls are staying at the same house, not in this town."

Heero passed the time playing doctor with a scalpel and Dorothy. In the time and effort it takes to perform a biopsy, the beacon was out. He repeated the procedure with Janice.

"I'll just leave these to transmit on the bed, where they'll be expecting them," he said.

Heero kept the Toyota Tercel in the garage for Tanya's use, though he instructed her to normally use public transportation. After a long wait, it showed up, without the pesky Bartista guard inside.

"I'll take your things to the car. Wait here until Tanya can help you move Dorothy."

Yuy handled the twin luggage bags of Dorothy and Janice's things, and sinuously walked them out with nil strain. Moments later, Tanya, a ten in Janice's book, wrapped one of Dorothy's lifeless limbs under one strapless shoulder.

"Hey, Tanya. You're cute. Where do you shop?"

The maid, dressed in a lacquered satin-seamed ebony bodysuit and ankle-length skirt, blushed.

"Thanks, you're cute, too. I bought this in the foreign quarter. So, are you Heero's, um, girl?" The maid glanced down mournfully. Janice tried comforting her.

"Not at all. Heero's helping the other girl and me get out of the country. We didn't come to Columbia by choice," she droned dully.

"I'm totally sorry," replied Tonya, "I entered town the same way. I feel ill," she held her stomach in emphasis. They stared downcast a beat, until Heero urged them to move.

Tonya had the wheel, Heero in the right passenger seat, and the two clones in the back. Tonya carefully watched traffic, and merged into the street. Congestion was heavier than normal, and paramilitary presence was entirely visible.

The suburban house wasn't anywhere of interest to the paramilitary band, and the Tercel passed through the checkpoints without any trouble. Tonya pulled the Toyota into the garage, and deeply exhaled. Janice also took the occasion to purge her air supply.

"Ladies, this is the private house in a very quite neighborhood, where nothing will bother us until we abandon this town. I must caution you not to leave the house until I say, and yes, we'll have to keep Dorothy in bondage until we're out of the country."

Heero left the trio alone while he logged into the net in his room. Open source news services detailed some of the story concerning the chaos around him, and his own experiences helped fill in the blanks. Somalia and Turkey seemed in the green, though some news from Bremen surprised him. Lady Une shot in a duel? He couldn't wrap his head around that one, nor could he accept the official explanation for the cause. He knew a little of the historic Hapsburgs, but didn't know how the Austrian family fit into the modern day. He didn't even know there was a Duchess Wellington, though he did vaguely remember a Duke Wellington standing up to Emperor Napoleon. What was the aphorism? Yes, Operation M met its Waterloo in Siberia.

Well said.

He checked on the phone bugging business. Bartista's men, and affiliates like the men in Janice's brothel, carry Nokia digital cellular phones with Symbian operating systems. The phone Janice left around her co-workers contained a malicious worm ready and willing to propagate into all the phones the user calls. Heero's plan for the worm requires that everyone dialed by the phone will unwittingly accept a file posing as an update patch. That way, the worm will successfully infiltrate most phones, and dump copies of all the information in that phone, included address and phone books, to Heero. The worm will also record conversations and transmit caller locations directly to Heero's mailbox.

With all this data coming at him, Heero Yuy will have everything he needs to know to whack all the players.

"Heeeerroo! Do you want me to bring you a beverage or something?"

He sighed, typed the "boss" key.

"Sure thing, Tanya, will you please make me a hot cup of that green tea I'm trying to like?" In a past life, he'd let Major Sally lecture him on the merits of taking care of his body. The doctor is right, of course, and the Gundam pilot philosophically accepted her medical advice. Still, can no tasty beverages work as a substitute?

Well, folks, the site has taken shape into something halfway respectable. I hope someone out there thinks that song is cool. The lyrics show up in the second chapter of my vampire gundam tale. In case you've listened to the song, and wondering if that is my voice, yes, but not my singing or spoken voice.

Viscount is editing the third chapter of that before mentioned vampire yarn, so we're looking at posting that someday (meaning he procrastinates, and his work ethic sucks.) Peace out!

P.S. Do any of you remember those amusing psychiatric text based programs? I bet no one else thought of basing a psychological scene on the dialogue generated in one of those sessions!

Another P.S. The Typewriter always gets me to do his work for him. Viscount :)

Ps3: Do not!


	30. WuFei Drives Into A Kenya Ambush

"Indeed, I think that people want peace so much

That one of these days governments had

Better get out of their way and let them have it."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Under Director Une's authority and Trowa Barton's encouragement, WuFei Chang liberated several gundanium main battle tanks from the Relief Agency's control, and set them as the teeth for his incursion party. With some luck and maneuvering, the Chinese Preventer set his hopes on outfoxing the rebels somewhere west in Kenya.

The Relief Agency could only spare a quartet of the ultra new gundanium hover skirted vehicles, but these four could handle anything up to and including a Leo mobile suit in ground combat.

Each tank came outfitted for stations for a driver, upfront, gunner, in the turret, and a commander, in the machinegun turret. The tank had no loader, who was subbed-out in favor of a "carousel" autoloader. The tank's engine, a robust fission engine designed for use at McMurdo and Barkley in Antarctica, is set forward of the driver, giving space for eight infantrymen in the back. The engine's electrical output is more than enough to levitate the tank two meters at seventy kilometers an hour and fire the railgun every five seconds.

The tank column stuck to the Kenyan roads, twitching for an imminent ambush. WuFei tensely sat in the commander's turret of the lead tank, restlessly swiveling front to back, angling the gun up and down, tracing every ridge while doing so. The tanks tossed up sandy dust storms while sprinting nearly fifty mile per hour in single file. A wooden bridge collapses under the mass of a shockwave as WuFei's lead tank makes a crossing. For a conventional tracked model, that would have been all she wrote, but for a hover tank, life goes on.

An ugly RPG fusillade cratered the rock face of the arroyo, now far behind WuFei's burling tank. He snapped left, stroked every inch of the ridge with his turreted gun, and swept over the same areas again.

"Halt! Full reverse!"

His driver heeded the command, retraced his steps.

"Yes Sir, full reverse."

The crouched troopers ahead stood vertical in pursuit. _Why didn't they drive into our ambush? No fair!_

WuFei waited for a great parade of foolhardy infantry to give chase into the open, before turning his suped gun to pile tungsten carbide on them.

WuFei's compartment space for troops actually harbored an electric intercept lab, so when the radiomen off the road called in support from some rocket mortar batteries way off the road, the intercept people found radio waves for WuFei to use as targeting beacons.

He dunked his own rocket mortars, 60mm meant for smoke discharging, to airburst right over them.

A pair of Apache gunships cleared out the mortar nest, and the jeeps that towed them in.

"All units," WuFei radioed, "I want us to sweep through the arroyo, and see if we can find any more weaklings to kill."


	31. End Game

I didn't write the original KFC email, but the author is unknown, and the content itself is part of internet folklore.

This urban legend has floated across the net for centuries, seemly never ready to die. Perhaps it was just because it's really amusing, or perhaps someone out there wanted others to wonder if it were true. Whatever motivation kept it going, Tanya Lopez thought it something to share with Heero:

"KFC has been a part of our American traditions for many years. Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously. Do they really know what they are eating? During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts.

First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently, the company has changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue. It's not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they cannot use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms. These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet. The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this.

Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will never or see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing. I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know. Please forward this message to as many people as you can. Together we can make KFC start using real chicken again."

The University of New Hampshire conducted the study, or so they deny every time a flood of these Emails resurface, but a resurgence of belief has returned since the Winner family became a major stockholder. That's been a while, so maybe Heero had never seen this.

Tanya printed out a page, and entered Heero's room.

_Is he still asleep?_ No, but the bed is unmade. The bathroom is empty, too. Tanya's heart quickens as she probes about the house. Janice is sleeping in the basement beside the Dorothy, who is still restrained.

The only man in the house can't be found.

The man Heero Yuy has his first hit lined up. Patience is the virtue he relies on. The sun is up, but most of Heero's mission he conducted at night. In a full Ghillie suit, a sniper's attire for breaking the shape of one's body to the human eye, the G-pilot clutches that trademark lugar pistol, this time lengthened out with a barrel longer than those once issued to German Artillerists. This one came with a butt-stock and a carbine-length barrel, for some relatively concealed distance shooting.

He's in a hedgerow, some 200 meters from the first target's window. The target isn't a big fish, just a media distributor for some electronic vice, but his phone rang, and the evidence gleaned from that cell punched his time card. Please expire now.

All the windows are drawn, meaning lighting is provided electrically. Heero's bomb detonated seconds before the distributor pulled his window shade.

In two seconds, Heero emptied the eight round magazine, training all eight within two minutes of angle (MOA), meaning his 200 meter shots fell within a four inch circle of his aiming point. With eight 9mm shots, that's good enough for a kill.

"You distributed the wrong kind of smut for the wrong people. Sorry, fellow." Heero slowly back-peddled in the shallow trench he'd prepared over the night, cutting down his gun as he retreated.

The assassin escaped without incident.

Kurdistan

Job Khalid overlooked the ruined warehouse one last time before vacating the grassy hill perched distant enough for the Kurdish Police to not notice. A meat wagon hauled the bodies out, and Kurds in blue uniforms taped off the crime scene.

He'd been extremely lucky to have been in contact with _Al Asad_(The Lion), while Turkish SWAT carried out what they euphemistically called "the takedown." So Al Asad has twice blessed him on this mission, first, by offering to activate their only martyr to conduct the simple attack he'd discussed, and they also saved his life.

Al Asad, despite the Arabian name, was actually a Chinese group from the Xinjiang province, a group barely larger than two brothers and three sons, though they'd be down to two soon. Why is only one son a martyr, you ask? Well, someone has to carry on the business.

Khalid had their sympathies and support because both fought against assimilating into ESUN-drawn borders. The Moslem province of Xinjiang felt foreign to the rest of what people commonly call China, and wants autonomy. While Khalid, son of a Moslem father and a Christian mother, battled the Moslem Turks for the people of Armenia.

He felt severe disappointment that his close-knit bunch of skilled fighters had been dropped by a Turkish raid, but accepted the token loss in favor of protecting his high-level Kurdish informant. Still, those guys could have become as good as those he chose to save, given more training and extra time. But time is short.

"Noah, have I lost faith with the spared?"

Noah replied in the negative.

"The guys understand those drivers were only dupes never fully included into our plans, by choice, we remember."

Job stubbed his fallen cigarette.

"Yeah, I remember. Just drivers. They remained sheltered during the fighting, and were going to drift back home anyway. Do the guys suspect my motives?"

Another negative.

"No, at least out loud. They think you were just being more cautious toward the _true_ soldiers."

"Well, I was, if you think about it."

"Yes."

Job pocketed his cigarette pack.

"Did the shooter call back?"

"Yes, his flight landed in Nicosia, and he's all ready to go."

Khalid no longer craved a smoke.

"Excellent. I only wish I could lead the rescue myself."

Cyprus

The sub's divers mysteriously fell into view of a lifeguard on wakeboards off shore of sandy beaches of a Larnaca resort. The men walk their boards across the beach, jabbering on about how awesome wakeboarding can be before work. They left the beach to the docks, giving the lifeguard every reason to assume they worked over there. They didn't bother correcting her.

Basil Jacobs and Mikhail Amos, the two operatives these six men came to rescue, had mailed copies of the keys for a church van, so the men avoided the need to (a.) walk to and from their objective, (b.) go through the obtrusive difficulty of renting transportation, or (c.) borrow a car from anyone in the cell's support structure, thus avoiding contact with a possibly compromised agent.

Remarkably, the church didn't change the locks after the boys were caught, an oversight they expected and counted on.

Inside the van, the guys unpacked the contents of their hollowed out wake boards, six cut-down SMG versions of Austria's picturesque Steyr assault rifle, complements of, well, people in Austria.

Through very subtle and lengthy manipulations by Amos and Jacobs, it just so happened the Orthodox Church had a goodwill visit scheduled for the United Nations teal berets on duty in Dekéleia.

Before driving up to the base gate, the van made a stop at the hardware store, and bought six sheets of steel, and twelve bungee cords. The steel sheets were of the dimensions of the cavities in their wakeboards.

After that, the six Armenians drove their white church van to the entrance near the stockade, where a sentry in a teal beret flagged them down.

"Peace be upon you, sir," said the driver, taking special care to get all the blessings right.

"And unto you, mister. My, there are many of you!" He did a little poking around with his head. The other five waved and shouted their greetings.

"Okay, circle around the stockade there, and drive up to that theater over that way."

He motioned them along, warmly told them to have a nice day, and seemed extremely warm and sincere, but the driver noticed with suspicion as the guard tugged his lapel radio.

"Suit up, my brothers, for they've been forewarned."

Indeed, as soon as the men slide open the van's side door, the automatic sentry guns cut tens of thousands of rounds through the vehicle.

They leaped from the vehicle, running awkwardly with strange turtle shells on their backs. Bullets plinked all portions of their armor, bullets designed to penetrate all body armor projected to exist into the coming decades, but these bullets flattened against the crystalline structure of the inflexible wakeboards.

They stormed through the stockade door, even as death plinked them feebly in the backs. Their Austrian weapons terminated those waiting for them, and the team successfully retrieved to comrades who'd humbly been waiting in these stockade pins.

"To arms, brothers, we've come to retrieve you!"

The guys sacrificed a second to wipe off splinters kicked up from the thoroughly murdered stockade door.

Two Armies (Armenians) unhooked their armored boards, moved them to their fore, and fired suppression bursts at approaching teal berets.

The van's body looked terribly worn, but the LT figured it still worked, unless the confused enemy had the foresight to disable the engine block.

"Follow me!"

He stormed through the open van door, even while the board shielding him absorbed more pummeling. The Sarge kicked in last, and slid the hatch.

"Let's go, L-Tee!"

Tension released from his gut as the van rolled in reverse.

"We have power."

The boards shielded their backs, while the men relied on the dash, engine block, et cetera, to shield from the storming UN soldiers, while they fended UN troops off with SMG suppression.

An S-turn in a high gravity crate like a van is dangerous, but the LT pulled one upon passing through the gate. Then he floored the pedal.

"Welcome back, comrades. Now I hope you guys are ready to swim, 'cause this wasn't a well thought out extraction."

Seconds after the Lieutenant's warning, the van splashed off the dock at high speed.

Constantine Alexander Pushkin saw the commotion through the corner of his eye, and wondered if his warning had been properly heeded. He lay sprawled in the amber grass under his ghillie, a suit that is basically a whole lot of rags and netting worn to break up any patterns in shape and color that would normally reveal a person's location to others. It can be thought of as a duck blind worn as a suit.

The target known as Auda cannot be seen in his office. CAP has alternately watched through his Brushnel binoculars, and the formidable Leupold Series M scope atop his Model 650 RAMO anti-material long rifle, a gun fitted for firing 14.5x115 Russian armor piercing ammunition from a seven round detachable box magazine.

This is a very large caliber rifle, but CAP is comfortable with most guns ranging all the way up to Russia's proud 15cm rifled cannon. The gun size won't be a problem, and neither will patience.

Auda is furious. The base had received a credible tip that the Armenians were coming to spring the prisoners, and they'd squandered the opportunity to trap the rescuers. He reviewed the tapes from a secure windowless conference room, but once the smoke cleared, he stormed to the stockade to see things firsthand.

The target was clearly trotting violently, with arms flailing at his flanks. He had every reason to be angry, the Russian judged, but that couldn't keep the sniper from making his day even worse.

He manually latched the bolt, leaned the gun toward the aiming point, triggered the decoy primacord charge, and depressed the trigger as Auda ducked. The projectile traversed over a kilometer, arced in a terminal dive, punctured the Arab's forearm, brutally severing bone and tissue. The bullet sliced through and followed Auda's hip, a vulnerable place unshielded by multi layered body armor.

The bullet passed through that, too, and out the buttocks.

Constantine Alexander Pushkin, satisfied his shot wouldn't soil his reputation as an elite shooter, commando-crawled into an impossibly cramped spider hole, and shuffled about until his hiding place felt tolerable.

He could stay there for nearly a week, if he had to, but the search would probably blow over before it came to that.

In the meantime, he'd occupy himself by writing a thank you note to the gunsmiths in Jacksonville, Arkansas.

Columbia

Heero Yuy's next target probably held more importance than the last one. She was a brunette of perhaps fifty, who led Bartista's Youth Movement for girls. She's sort of like the Girl Scout chairperson for Nazis, one could say.

Through the network of phone calls, she'd received orders to mobilize the girl troops to assist in setting up checkpoints, but Heero wasn't about to let that happen.

A working jeep arrived, one of the few unaffected by Heero's EMP bomb, drove to pick her up as the gundam pilot progressed down the sidewalk with hands behind his head. About eighty meters away, too distant for a clean pistol shot. He stoically ripped the lugar taped to his head, and dropped the target with half the magazine, then ducked around a corner. He sprinted, hurdled a fence, and finally broke down his pistol. He removed the absurdly long carbine barrel, and returned it to normal pistol length, before concealing it under his waistband.

That hit will probably generate more phone calls, once the fried circuits are replaced.

The Japanese jack-of-all-things-that-ends-in-the-death-of-bad-guys seamlessly integrated into a crew of roofers on a high rise building, and perched over the side as a bicycle convoy of the male youth group made sure the same fate didn't overcome the male counterpart of Heero's last target. If only a hand-thrown bomb didn't cascade from a roof, they'd have succeeded.

Yes, Bartista had someone in charge of a senior citizens auxiliary, and he'd also been called up. Heero sneaked up close and personal to the geriatric general, and lodged a silent shell in his brain. From only twenty meters, the assassin didn't bother with the silencer, instead firing the communist bloc "silent ammo," a conventional bullet with a sound-dampening piston inside. The gun only made a soft click, and no one ever saw the lugar, for he'd wrapped it with his hand cast.

President McKinley was killed this way.

Heero dipped a detonation charge into the gas tank of the next target's car. The K9 unit's leader exploded while turning the ignition.

The adult supervisor for the called-up crosswalk guard died the same way the senior citizens auxiliary leader did, while running a checkpoint at a crosswalk.

Heero scratched several others off the list before reentering the home that afternoon.

Switzerland

Director Une and President Murphy arrived at the helicopter pad of Preventer Headquarters in Geneva on a Whitehawk executive helicopter several hours after the doctors released Une from the hospital.

Trowa, Cathy, Quatre, Dorothy, Louis Noin, and Mariemea stood by the sidewalk to welcome her back to the proper home of the Preventer Director. Hard helmeted Swiss cops held the press and ragtag protestors at a riot parameter within shouting distance from the chopper.

Hyperbole enriched slogans of dubious merit chased them inside the cavernous office structure, but nobody in the troop felt that they were in retreat. They'd faced true enemies, and most were either dead or in jail, awaiting sentencing. Confetti littered the halls the moment Une walked through. More joyous signs demanded reading. This demonstration seemed more a gala, and for good reason.

Auda compared wounds with Une, and showed everyone else the sources of his purple hearts. This reminded most of the staff to pipe down and return to work.

Columbia's upsurge in violence announced media attention from the hall TV. They watched.

"I almost feel robbed of my victory, not having Somalia's success aired, but if Heero succeeds over there, than it's worth it," mused Quatre, generating a tide of agreements.

"I never thought we'd change the world so fast, that we'd have our achievements competing for airtime," Une commented.

"We may consider this our month of miracles, but we won't see it that way if things go wrong this Christmas," opined Trowa, "what did I say?"

Cuba

Zechs washed off all the massage oils, the lotions, every other crazy thing Noin had entreated for him to bestow over her physique. The pleasure provoked by these items seemed proportional to the lush capital required of those bottles, but the auditors will burst veins at seeing the expense. The Count didn't care. The time here left him with the vigor to slay a ream of Gemini's. Miser had Epyon set for daring deeds, and Talgeese up for outlandish escapades.

Havana had done him rapture, and a hankering for a return voyage on the following Thanksgiving, or an alternate a nearer date.

Wasn't this supposed to be disastrous? Catastrophe isn't the way of cunning men. Chew on those words, and rekindle to mind the Zechs Marquise of legend, and the exploits of his still young career. Does he ever walk through fire even singed? No, place your faith where Treize placed his, imbecile.

Columbia

"The power's been out all day, but then, when you walk around the house, everything comes back on!"

Two girls worshiped at Heero Yuy's feet, both "tens" to his judgmental eyes.

"I can do anything, or so people tell me. Actually, I constructed a Faraday Cage around the house, thus shielding the appliances from an EMP bomb I detonated today. For the shielding to work, I had to cut everything off from external cables. Once I arrived, I plugged the items in, and activated the generator in the basement. You didn't spot me down there?"

Their eyes read blank. He'd arranged every strange phenomenon by himself? He really can do anything!

He entered the home, and viewed news feeds from around the world. Bartista fighters held on to redoubts of piled earth against the Republic's determined entrance into the suburban cityscape of Bogotá. Caballero's forces exploited full spectrum obscurants, painting gothic scenes through the television. Tracers, willey-petes, laser illumination, muzzle flashpoints, and epigrammatic combustions lit a dark hamlet, strewn by the shaping of a joint exercise called war.

Like plowed fields, smoke trails transposed cirrus grids over an armada of apparition colored helicopters with knight-clad infantry fast-roping down. Armored cars and tanks raced along the flanks of IFVs, LAVs, APCs, and Armored Reconnaissance Wagons, for battened down hard targets already immolated by jellied flames doused on them from airborne gunships, themselves braving sudden and common death.

"In Bartista's quest to prevent Caballero from joining with ESUN in Panama, he'd committed too many assets to Medillin, and left Bogota in a skeletal state. Now, if he attempts recouping Bogota, a city vital for his vie for legitimacy, he risks interdicting that link with Panama. I sense we're knocking on the end game."

Kenya

WuFei's hunch had proven true. The remaining African forces did indeed rest in barracks nestled deep within the Cliffside of this parched arroyo. They'd fought to the last man, the last crate of shoulder-fired rocket, Molotov, the other high gauge futility, but the gundanium tanks plowed on. Some of the heaviest man-portable rockets, actually meant as individually fired artillery rockets, rattled the lead tank significantly.

WuFei descended into the bowls of his vehicle just as one of these stranded the minigun turret from the parent. Another destructive tool orphaned the infrared sensor. They buggered the mortar. They dipped nearly to the floor as holes in the rubber skirt gaped wider. The filtration unit scrubbed out smoke, and moving parts gradually bit together, increasing mechanical noise.

WuFei ascended right back up, mounted a Belgian MAG chaingun, and seeded the enemy generously. The main gun swathed at them with HE ammunition, and bored kinetic rounds deep inside the cliff face structures. RPGs and LAWs lanced about at the highest possible frequency.

They hassled the tanks to the brink of exhaustion, but the tank squad didn't bend. Neither did the Africans, they just ran out of stock.

"Duo, our tanks are trashed. Yeah, we met the enemy, and they perished where we met. We need EVAC, right now, and the LZ will be hotter than Dante's finale."

The ambush in depth had redeployed in a ring around the tank squadron, biting in. Eight-ton trucks cradled 105mm Leo machine guns, full sized rocket artillery pitted their position, and rifled artillery guns punctuated the hellfire. WuFei ordered his infantry to dismount and meet the enemy on higher ground, while the tank elevated their main guns for a measure of support.

As much as he loathed admitting it, he'd gotten stuck in the lion's den.

Major Sally landed with an international force of tenderfoot Djibouti and Somali militia, all itching to make the show of force the doctor had asked of them.

The helicopter skids touched down behind those exposed improvised artillery pieces, mistakenly unescorted by protective infantry. Clearly, they didn't count on a heliborne force to outmaneuver them. Salvos of 2.75 inch hydra rockets backed up SAW door gunners hanging from the helicopters. Guns and feeding wagons billowed combustive flames to the level of oaks, and the militiamen stuck to the bargain, lining up no farther than 200 meters from the enemy, and volleying drum barrels of Kalishnikov ammunition at the enemy's rear, thoroughly routing them.

The helicopters overhead risks strafing runs, promoting the tumult. Then, once their assault rifles dryly clicked empty, the men took Sally at her pledge that she'd "only ask of you to eject your magazines at the enemy, then I'll take you into town for a night of carousing!"

Carolina's Daniel Morgan (remember Mel Gibson's _The Patriot_?) couldn't have cut a better bargain with militia.

WuFei expressed his gratitude by casting an expression of reticent appreciation.


	32. The Final Victor

**Epilogue**

****WuFei slept in traction during his flight into Geneva, with Sally attentively watching over his condition during the flight. Duo teleconferenced with the Preventers already assembled in Switzerland. Words shared in the conference meeting were vague and general, for no one wanted to spill operational details with anyone piggybacked on the teleconference link.

Available details included were available through open sources, but Une considered it vital Duo and the others in flight get an interactive session. Through compiling innuendo speckled over the speaking, Duo deduced Une planned on commissioning him to lead a System Administration force in Eastern Africa, to passively pacify the zone. Isn't that what he's been doing? No, not with official resources and authority. From then on, he'd receive the full weight (and red tape, resistance, infighting...) of a regional C-in-C.

She filled him in on a few details outlined by President Murphy, including a new commitment to jailing arrangements for all the perpetrators involved in the action.

"Prisons should work like benevolent border collies, shepherding inhabitants into better behavior, and the concept of setting a fixed, irreversible set of time interferes with any good intentions," Shaun Murphy the congress on his surprisingly "soft line" approach for the prisoners of war captured in the Somali battles. He called for Palestinian construction workers to build a series of penitentiaries along the blueprints of Maxwell House.

Before a patient audience, and millions of television sets, he described the process:

"Leviathan air-inflated rubber balloons will support construction, and the end result will be a profoundly inexpensive geodesic dome. Garrison Maximum Security Prison (named after the former Ranger commander in Somalia) will be powered through a Pyrex flat plate solar collector, and the heating medium will be salt water, and a concrete cylinder will serve as the thermal storage pit.

Inside, 10X12 foot cells will besiege wide corridors, and deeply embedded LED lights will brighten the cellblocks. CCD cameras will pipe streaming digital video to flat liquid crystal displays situated in the "attic," where correctional personnel lounge above the flat ceiling. All prisoner-accessible plumbing will come from nineteenth century brick-and-mortar means, and furniture will be made of straw and canvas.

Correctional officers will carry lexan shields and cattle prods whenever in contact with prisoners, and ceiling CS teargas valves are triggered by numbered chamber, whenever things get messy.

Hard labor, reform, and education are the mantras for lesser infractions. Many of these tame offenders will tend to the new sweet sorghum fields for exercise. The prison majority will work their muscles six hours a week, with considerably more labor at harvest time. Model prisoners will be free to apply for work at the processing plant, where the sorghum will be converted into the new State's staple fuel; alcohol.

Much like the Irish system, select individuals, including all those eligible for paid work at the plant, can earn parole by putting in work with the national highway project, which will finally connect the nation.

When not working, the inmates will return to a prison based on the Garrison Supermax architecture, but with larger windows and more community areas. Literacy being first on the plate, prisoners will learn to read and write in the tradition of the nineteenth century schoolhouse, with similar reading primers. In the same room, meals are served. Milo will be the staple grain, and other foods will be scarce, not for cruelty, but because not much else is readily available in Somalia. Hopefully, ocean fish and seaweed will work out on prison plates, should those industries pan out.

After breakfast, prisoners lockstep to the fields, and work their hand tools. This is when the cells are shaken down for contraband. When finished, some prisoners shift to roadwork, while others return "inside the walls," where they can engage in none-paying activities like studying or engaging in a conversation, while they soak in some sun in 12X15 foot chain-link kennels, where they could even garden, if they wished.

Around noon, when everyone should be back, prisoners file away into vocational training: sales, building and grounds technology, veterinary training (equestrian variety), legal, and a few others will be considered.

Late in the afternoon, everyone not being reprimanded will get a chance to earn a small wage keeping up the prison, then another meal.

Then back to the cells. Prisoners schedule their own lights out times."

He described how relief forces were handling detainments in the meantime:

"Through international channels (questioning hospitalized diplomats kidnapped over the years), we separate the clan war criminals from the general population, and quarter the 5000 in aged fishing trawlers deep in territorial waters. For these men, incapacitation will last the remainder of their natural lives. That pretty much outlines business for the EPOW we have in the country.

With these measures, we can begin changing this portion of the world. We are currently shipping every single prefabricated aluminum home our Relief Forces have in stock. These homes will be given out to families all over Eastern Africa. Too stave off a humanitarian crisis, I've authorized our Logistics personnel to ship all of our militaries expired rations to Mogadishu, to be further distributed across the continent. The _William H. Cosby _docked in the port today, and aircraft are parceling out humanitarian items far into Africa."

He swayed at the podium, absorbing all the critical faces studying him.

"Just one more item of business. I have a list of people I want you to consider for Medal of Honour considerations."

**Columbia**

****It was sometime before daylight when Bartista's City Government had the power back on, and most of the critical circuits replaced. The problem of having a high-mega joule electro-magnetic footprint fry everything was compounded by _La Republica's_ careful use of tactical fighter aircraft against Medillin's vulnerable grid network. The air defense responded slowly, thanks to several chinks in the radar coverage grid, and reconstruction efforts are seemingly far slower.

At daylight, a massive air armada sweeps over one area especially weakened in the previous attacks, and Bartista's units match them fully.

Both sides field two complete wings each, with full electronic, tanker, and advanced air warning air control support. Caballero's air force links up in a wide phalanx made up of two planes in a marriage contract flying in loose formation. Bartista's forces tighten four planes in rigid deltas, employing networked radar packages for more improved missile fire control.

Caballero's flyers sacrifice true airspeed for superior altitude, while Bartista's aviators hang lower to maintain speed. Both sides probe and jab feints like experienced boxers, warily looking for any sign of the opponent slackening up. Finally, when the cartel fighters parry a very shallow thrust from above, a hungry pack of helicopters spring a flying flack-trap from the ground clutter of the mountains. A delirious amount of infrared homing weapons stretch over a six-mile area up and above thirty-thousand feet.

Garnet processions of chain-gun and Vulcan shot chase at their rocket exhaust. Instinctively, pilots within the opposition call out "SAM!" Planes dive about evasively, showing exposed shots for the Republic's high ground fighters. The Republic tactical aircraft pursued, tacked claret brackets over the declining airframes, pickled some adjacent shots.

Survivors selected the better part of valor, and ditched the dogfight. Aries suits from Medillin relieved the losers, and the battle reset to zero. The straight-winged fighters and helicopters retreated to the rear for refueling and rearmament, leaving the mobile-suits thoroughly even, save a small desperate infantry force tooled with puny missiles.

The suits shadowed one another until the fatalistic SAM missile batteries demonstrated their guts when the Aries floated twelve O'clock high.

Bartista still held ground control in their woods, so they blazed trails in a hurry. The suits flew conservatively until both sides hit bingo fuel, and cut home. Distant low-percentage shots dominated the match, leaving Bartista's air force alive, but clearly the loser.

In Town 

"Excuse me, Sir, but do you know the direction to this bomb shelter?" Heero met his next target at a red light near the city square. This one wasn't important enough to merit a car and driver, for he was just a senior member of a security agency.

"Let's see, we are here," the guard jabbed the map with one finger, then suddenly slumped back in his chair."

"Okay, thank you, Sir!" Heero expressed his gratitude loud enough for the checkpoint sentries to overhear, and turned while giving one last thankful wave at the driver. He went on his way as the light turned green. The sentries had completely forgotten the exchange minutes later, when they decided to determine why that driver never drove on green,

Later

Heero entered the same teashop a precinct police chief's gopher frequented. Here, the security check prevented him from bringing in a weapon, but that didn't matter much.

He ordered pennyroyal, and diligently sipped it down as the gopher picked up a bagged order, and walked past Heero's Dodge Neon. Heero speed-dialed a small charge, detonating a fiery gas tank rupture.

Next

The precinct Deputy Chief somehow missed the radio dispatch reporting the explosion. It may have had something to do with the line-of-sight radio barrage coming from Heero's phone, which blanketed the channels with the hiss of static.

So Anthony Munez and his plain-clothed escort weren't prepared for Heero's Chevy Caviler, when it gave a repeat performance beside them.

Heero attended to finishing his Irish Crème Coffee.

A Little Later

The biggest problem with hiding around a city in a taxi is that someone with cruel intentions may decide to hail your cab. Jorge Padilla, Bartista's handpicked Praetorian, the guy tasked with tugging puppet government strings, or cutting them, should the strings slacken too much, drove about this way. Sadly, someone had to call him about a Senator murmuring about rebellion.

Heero, in a Volkswagon Jetta he'd kept cold during his Columbia stay, strapped on a football helmet and pads as he crossed into opposing traffic, and clobbered the taxi. His teeth chattered in his skull, and the airbag smothered his body. The shattered driver door didn't budge for several kicks.

Out at last, the Japanese assassin whipped out a _bic_ lighter, and incinerated some cotton cloth protruding from a 32oz plastic bottle of 87 octane gasoline, long-sufferingly let it char down, and pitched the Molotov through the taxi before ignition.

Heero repeated the lighting process with the Jetta's fuel storage, and shopped for a new vehicle at a nearby lot, remembering to shed the football attire.

Pancho Bautista, the leader of a pro-Bartista paramilitary militia charged with finding the responsible assassin, received orders from his cell. He hid out in what appeared to be an ordinary peon barn from the outside, but was actually a comfortable timber living space. He lived simply and out of sight. His runners were dirty looking children, and he didn't phone, fax, or electronically mail his operatives. But like the others, he couldn't take part in the regime without keeping a cell handy.

The _Symbian_ OS chose that irritating time to ask for a security update. Bautista considered himself highly competent on security matters, and didn't let himself slip into poor habits then or ever.

This would be a pain. He ordered one of the runners at attention to dispatch the team to find all the hidden operatives, and bring them in for explicit orders.

The little destitute kid pedaled his feet, and in a short time, led in one of the new assassins.

_Hmm, this short one looks a little Japanese..._

Finally

Heero crumpled the paper contents of the militia leader's desk files, and stuffed them down his shorts. He fireman carried the body to the barn's upper deck, and invited the next assassin up. At the day's end, he felt convinced no more were coming, and escaped through the upper window, spider-crawled across the roof, and tight walked the high wire.

His new car came with an instruction manual in the glove compartment. Yuy spaced out all the stolen documents within the pages, and braved passing through a checkpoint. He'd left his pistol buried on a park corner, so the search, far more intensive than anything he'd encountered yet, turned up nothing against him.

They quizzed him, not entirely convinced he looked local, but he sounded native, and they decided not to trouble themselves with detaining him.

They warned him a curfew would start soon, and that he'd better stay home the next few days, if he wanted to stay out of chains.

The authorities were on the verge of passing a clampdown, the guards had said, so it would be wise to stock the pantry as much as he could.

Heero heartily thanked them for the advice, and followed their instructions.

Home looked fairly normal, but something didn't feel right. The garage light was on, and he knew that wasn't normal. Heero wondered if he'd been found out, or if the authorities had checked his home.

He knew two lives in that house could incriminate him enough for instant execution, and with no gun, a shootout would be one-sided. He drove around to spy the back shed, and saw the lock cut off, and the doors swaying.

He stopped in the road, and bolted over the fence, to the shed, and opened the fat console TV inside. They hadn't found his explosives kit. He removed his spare gun from the cache, and rammed in a magazine, cocked the hammer, chambered a round.

His key slid through the back lock without any noisy friction, and he peered through the opened door, shielding most of his small body with the wall.

Tanya/Tonya noticed the light pouring in, and schlepped near.

"Who's in the garage?"

She came out, demonstrating no hidden thug existed to coerce her.

"Dorothy and Janice. I hid them in the car when some soldiers came to search the place."

Heero stared off to consider everything.

"I see. Did they find them? Search my computer? Have you answered a questionnaire?"

"No, yes, and yes. They searched the garage and every room, but didn't peak under the car tarp, so the girls didn't turn up."

He let her sling an arm around him, and walked her back inside.

"Good, so everything's fine. I have a new car in the road, and I must move it before someone tows it."

**Outside the Town**

**F**ighter sweeps of various sizes and configurations continued through the daylight hours, daring the city air defense to rule them routine. They never did, but by the time twilight set in, vital protocol lapsed, until defenders no longer bothered optically tracking the enemy.

This matters because of gundanium's less-known quality.

**Gundanium alloy**  
A unique compound which {sic} can only be produced in the zero-gravity conditions of space. In addition to its incredible strength, Gundanium alloy is electrically nonconductive and cannot be detected by radar. However, this material is expensive and difficult to manufacture, making it unfeasible for mass production.

Source: 

The gundanium need only be electroplated to achieve low-observable status; thick costly armor plates need not be applied.

This process they did with a common shuttlecraft, one with enough internal storage for a rack of iron bombs.

General Caballero personally chose the flight crew from the Air Force and Navy's best, and had the shuttle painted for night operations.

Leonard Fox, a Navy Lieutenant Commander, got the stick. An Air Force Major, Felix Alomar, got the seat to his right. These two could probably handle all the duties, but if not, Samuel Cruz, a mere Navy Ensign, came on as the Bombardier.

Fox and Alomar were around forty, and Cruz was the junior on board. They taxied off the Camp Prevention strip, masquerading as the daily USO flight.

After covering a safe distance from other traffic, the crew silenced the transponders, network modems, and the other emitters, the better to run black.

They followed the LORAN beacons to the city, and looked down for the mobile-suit pens nestled in a population center that the cruise missiles, ballistic missile reentry vehicles, and even the black jet didn't dare attack. "It should be noted," they were told, "that operatives inside the city couldn't reach it, and neither could Peacecraft, in his powerful mobile-suit.

They carried the heaviest and most complex bomb known to man, a bomb of horrifying power. Does anyone outside of the scientific community know just what ten terawatts is? That's ten to the thirteenth power watts, sickening amount of electricity, enough to heat a packet of deuterium (heavy water) to a really big number in scientific notation, a temperature seen in nature only around quasars (which are probably masses of space dust and gas being pulled into a black hole). All you need to burn water to these temperatures is a collage tabletop laser to concentrate all its output into the briefest moment, say a femtosecond (a time so short, nerve impulses are turtles in comparison), and got a whole lot of steam power lunging against the bomb casing. They worked on this, too. They electroplated a super-dense material, metallic hydrogen, around a thicker casing of gundanium, thus trapping the steam long enough to buildup an explosive pressure. It rebelled against its casing as Cruz closed the Bombay, and Fox climbed a ballistic arc away. When the explosion occurred, dirt all the way to the mantle turned to glass, tsunamis surged toward Japan, gundanium vapor shot toward the moon, and X radiation flashed high enough to leave strange photoelectric effects, similar to those on the shroud of Turin, on the colony walls. All this, but because the engineers had worked so hard bulking the bombcase's sides, the blast radius didn't expand over the city.

The bomb sank thousands of meters below the Earth, speared by the Preventers' donated miniaturized beam-saber, burrowing deep enough that the motioning gases in the bomb chose almost exclusively to escape upward, in the direction it had come, because that way was more open than all others. Gemini, the Gundam with the impervious hide, charged its planet defensors automatically, sensing it needed to batten down to stave the blast.

The blast applied Newton's third law, taking the suit into the boundaries of space. Up there, the volatile mass dissipated, and let Gemini fall back down.

Tallgeese III and Epyon, just arriving from Panama, pursued the falling object. They throttled up the verniers, and surveyed the hulk.

"It doesn't look serviceable, Zechs."

The suit's freefall ended in the Amazon, where it's crater created a shockwave sufficing to topple everything in Disneyland.

"Noin, what could account for something like this?"

Mordred Bartista heard about the incidents of the day while sweating out the day in a cattle trailer loaded with straw and bulls.

The mobile stockade was a high-end one, with a closed off bathroom, where he sat on the toilet while riding north of the city.

A personal jet waited in a private airport long overgrown in foliage.

He felt sickened, cheated, thieved and worse, but decided a flight back to the estate in Spain could save him. His mother would be waiting. Yuck! His aunts and sisters, too. It didn't matter. He'd just let them handle the bills from then on, see if they could balance the books. He'd done that. He'll tell them, and any nosy reporter that shows up, too. The crimes did pay, because, even after totaling all the losses in destroyed real estate, protection costs, and all else, the venture was profitable. So there, he'd won the game.

The vehicle stopped.

Bartista hedged a look.

A green Toyota Tercel with... Queen Relena and Dorothy Catalonia... sat behind them.

_Why are we stopped on the road? _

A wiry Japanese boy opened the gate, and encouraged all the bulls out. Two Gundams descended from high above.

_Treize and Zechs?_

"Grandee Mordred Bartista, please come out with your hands to your head," demanded the kid, holding out a pistol at arms length.

"How did you find me?"

The boy reached deep into his shorts, and removed a crumpled piece of paper.

"Your auditing was too detailed. Bautista, one of the thugs I killed, had a paper listing an airport covered in overgrowth, with coordinates, traffic directions, and even the label: GRANDEE'S CONTINGENCY GETAWAY AIRPORT. SEE ESCAPE PLAN DETAILS."


	33. Epilogue

**_Epilogue_**

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

**-George Bernard Shaw**

**Depths of the Indian Ocean**

**T**he _Hyman Rickover_-Class _Kinnaird R. McKee_ hunter-killer SSN, lead by the capable Commodore Chester Norris, lurked deep and slow as the crew watched news broadcasts picked up by a buoy-mounted antenna floating on the surface.

Norris let a thin cigar burn down to his fingers without ever puffing it, as rapt as he was by the satellite feed. Polk Browning offered an ashtray.

"Thank you, Mr. Browning, I- my mind wanders." Norris fanned his singed hand, rubbed it around his mercury-tarnished wedding band. He sat, rested his chin on one hand, no, that wasn't comfortable.

"I don't know how that surface fleet managed to survive," he sounded grave. The crew expected him to speculate out loud, but instead, the chin rested on the hand. He curled up in the chair in a way the crew considered feminine, but then decided he didn't enjoy the pose. He levered the footrest, and gave that a try. He crossed one leg over the other knee, resumed a different thinking pose.

"XO, I want you and the COB to meet me in the Captain's quarters," he paused a long moment, rubbed a thumb across his jaw line, "um, Bull has the conning tower."

Bull?

"Aye Sir, Bull has the conn."

"Bull has the conn, aye."

"Affirmative, Bull owns the conn."

Norris cleared his throat.

"I changed my mind. Master Chief has the conn."

"Aye Sir, Master Chief has the conn."

"Master Chief, aye. He has the conn."

He walked the corridor, turned back with an afterthought.

"Send Bull to my quarters, too."

**Columbia**

**He**ero Yuy drove the Tercel toward General Caballero's encampment settled to the East of Medellin, to one side of a major highway, in a camping zone. The spot came cleared of overgrowth, and had electric outlets, latrines, a fishing dock, water utility, and a heap of other stuff waiting for an army to settle in.

Heero commented on the logistical ingenuity as he drove in.

"They have a thinking staff. This country may go the right direction after all."

The girls didn't respond, oddly enough. After the Bartista era came to a close, Heero got around to asking "The Dorothy" her real name.

"Dot Lindsey, from Fort Benning, Georgia." He'd shaken her hand, and asked if she wanted to go home.

"Strange, I always told everyone that would listen that I'd get out of town the moment I could. But, I would have never chosen to leave like that." Heero pressed her.

"Does that mean you want to stay, go home, or go somewhere else?"

"It would be awkward seeing everyone again, living as if nothing ever happened. I think I'll do my own thing until I'm ready."

"They've suffered, too," Heero pointed out, "They deserve to know if you're alright, and what happened." Heero parked the car behind an open-topped jeep.

"I'll make a deal with you," said the gundam pilot, "you meet the parents, go through the 'welcome home' phase, and I'll arrange for a shrink to get the parents off your back while you go figure things out on your own."

Dot, no longer Dorothy, took sudden interest in the horizon.

"You can do that?"

"I've never encountered something beyond my capabilities. I know a doc named Sally Poe that could and would do this as a favor for me."

"Dr Po, huh? Alright, I'd like to call her up before giving this a try."

Heero suddenly dialed the cell. It rang several times, but came through.

"Hello, this is Zero. Would you kindly patch me to Relena, please? Sure, I'll hold."

**Geneva**

**Sa**nc's leader didn't hesitate picking up at her end.

"Hello Heero?"

"Ohayo gozaimsu, Hime (Good morning, Princess). I think the war is closing up here."

" Girlish laughter the television agrees. Lady Une is talking 'month of miracles' here, and we're all rooting for you!"

Heero could probably hear the festivities in the background.

"So desu ka? ("Is that so?) I can't hear Duo from my end. O kudasai Sally Poe-Sama (please give me Ms. Sally Poe).

She let him hear her dejected sigh.

"Okay. She's in a flight in. Give me a second to patch this through," she said, meaning she had a secretary do it.

"Sayonara, Ouji."

Author's note: Japanese isn't my first language, so constructively instruct me how to fix this, or else give me a break.

**Columbia**

Heero patiently let the switchboard bring in Sally. WuFei and Duo were there, too. He finally spoke in Mandarin (the greetings are standard, so it isn't vital for the reader to understand, but heck, I'll translate).

"Nee how-ma (Hola; que gusto?)?"

"Hun-how. (Bien; Mucho gusto)"

He asked how Sally felt, and Sally said she felt well. He translated the Mandarin to Spanish, so those in the car could follow the conversation.

"I have a sitch in over here you could fix real easy."

He handed the phone over to Dot, and let doctor and client hammer out an agreement.

**Berlin**

"Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more."

**-Mark Twain**

He didn't adapt a Moslem name. Instead, he lived his days as Sung Lo. He didn't go out much, and regrettably, snubbed the mosque, to better assimilate in Germany. Sung typically spent his days before a PC, gaming as he smoked excessively. Games varied, but they were usually PC versions of traditional Chinese hobbies.

Today, Father called, saying: "Son, I know you are set in your ways. Go ahead, I won't stop you." To any spyware, it sounds a sarcastic father is saying in a roundabout way is son is dead to him, and indeed he will be soon.

**Columbia**

**H**eero Yuy led _La Republica's_ armored shock troops through park irrigation ditches to detour city patrols. They lay prone under some hedges within sight of the foreign quarter, where ESUN's Elite Teal Berets await to link up. A tense showdown exists in this part.

Comically enough, Bartista's men had blotted the ESUN embassy with massive cardboard panels, besieging them in a cardboard box. The berets poked eyeholes, and carved cutouts for their guns to jut out. This is all very odd.

The Republic team size up what needs done, and bury Claymore and SLAM (Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition) demolitions.

The team then crawled away and regrouped further away, in a banking parking lot.

"We need to pop in some smokes and flash-bangs, then stun the security guards, presumably placed on opposite sides. Since I'm in street cloths, and fairly unthreatening, I'll lead in unarmed, and make sure the right guard goes down. Give no more than a second."

Heero rushed through the glass doors, swiveled right, and planted the heel of one hand under the guard's chin, gouging with his fingers. The frightened guard attempted to pedal away, found Heero's foot heel, tumbled to his tailbone. The smoke and flashes followed. The troops turned left, and hosed the left guard with sponge rounds.

"Seal off the exits, and climb to the observation deck!" Heero shouted orders, and left to the parking lot. They'll soon have the height advantage.

He takes the claymore primacord charge, sets it off. Luckily for the druggie army, Heero insisted on not using "true" claymores, but the same M5 Modular Crowd Control Munitions (MCCM) Trowa had in Somalia. He added flashbangs to the mix of rubber balls, just to do things flashier.

From the bank roof, several shock troops dispersed the M1029 Crowd Dispersal Cartridge from the M203 grenade launcher. The M1029 is a 40mm crowd dispersal round containing 48 tiny rubber balls. They reloaded with rarer "malodorant" grenades, and then proceeded to snipe around the subjects until the Teal Berets came out to accept surrenders.

Heero stepped from the bushes with his hands held up.

"I'm Agent Zero, and those guys on the bank roof are shock troops from The Republic of Columbia. I was wondering if we could link up to jointly capture the airport."

Some of the guys wondered if Heero was breaking the Geneva Convention or not, but decided it was just something lawyers hadn't gotten a chance to debate yet, so went along with it. They marched all the captured embassy blockade forces to the airport parameter, and demonstrated them about. Heero spoke up with a bullhorn.

"As you can see, we captured your forces in Foreign Quarter. Your forces didn't rally to block our convoy, either. I'm sending in the most senior officer to talk you into surrendering. I suggest listening to him."

They prodded the general ahead, until he sprinted on his own down no-mans-land.

"Okay, we're letting him in," said an opposing bullhorn.

He made it, which was encouraging.

"Come, white flag. Show yourself," the pilot muttered, watching all motion carefully."

A jeep crawled out, with a decorated general waving the surrender standard. A flood of raised hands followed.

The ESUN and RDC troops rejoiced.

"Noin, Zechs, this is Zero calling. Escort the flights in."

Embedded reporters broadcast images of ESUN and Republica de Columbia soldiers roaming the airport, and the two gundams lazily circled the sky, littering small scraps of paper. After letting the enemy think over the leaflets, which promised everything a republic or democracy can offer, General Caballero drove his machines by, and accepted as many surrenders as the enemy could supply.

Units not left leaderless by Heero's purging slipped away into the jungle, chased and bloodied by air strikes, and resistance didn't exist in town. Scuttlebutt spread that a parade was planned for noon, and once the general gained word, made it so.

Heero, Janice, Dot, Tanya, Noin, and Zechs stayed around just long enough for everyone to know they were still around.

"La Violencia is nearly over," Heero deadpanned, watching the confetti spray.

Zechs hummed an affirmation. They walked on, closer to the airport, where a flight waited.

"The townspeople have won, but the General has some work ahead. Soldiers will continue clashing, and smaller towns will suffer at the hands of looting bands." The boy clinched his hands, gaining sympathy from all the girls.

"We can cut them off by assembling town militias, but unless they're strong enough, that will only lead to massacres."

It weighed on him the whole walk, and so did the girls. ï **Heero **

Author's Note:

The following information comes from John Pike's wonderful site. His site describes what happened pretty well:

"In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the Armenians' tendency toward Europeanization antagonized Turkish officials and encouraged their view that Armenians were a foreign, subversive element in the sultan's realm. In 1895 Ottoman suspicion of the westernized Armenian population led to the massacre of 300,000 Armenians by special order of the Ottoman government.

The Ottoman government ordered large-scale roundups, deportations, and systematic torture and murder of Armenians beginning in the spring of 1915. Estimates vary from 600,000 to 2 million deaths out of the prewar population of about 3 million Armenians. By 1917 fewer than 200,000 Armenians remained in Turkey."

I knew this beforehand, but realized practically no one else had ever heard of these events. So when plotting this story so long ago, I wanted to make everyone wonder what motivates Armenians against the Turks. Well, if you though Job was just another run-of-the-mill evil terrorist, I'm sorry I left the wrong impression. If any ethnic Armenians have read this story, and became incensed at my cold characterization of Job, I had my reasons, and I'm sorry if I left the wrong impression.

I've actually put some effort into getting people to recognize what happened, and one day, having the United States and United Nations to officially classify the genocide.

One other note: if anyone wonders if a group just like Khalid's exists, I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you "Yes." John Pike's site has a page on a group called: Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA)  
Orly Group  
3rd October Organization. They haven't been very busy in recent years, but every once in a while, things still explode in Turkey. 

**Berlin**

Sung Lo took full advantage of the Disabled Citizens Rights Act, flashing his 'Disabled Status' card at the security gate, thus explaining the three green air tanks and breathing mask attached to his face. He showed his ticket, let the uniformed and mustached German airport screener check his luggage and person, then boarded his flight.

He kept the air closed off. Best to save it for when the contents are really necessary. Dogs sniffed him. Wands passed over him. He walked under an electronic energy field. Everything okayed him. Rumors still circulated that screeners hassled and profiled Arabs, though the Winners, and others, combated such practices tirelessly. Sung Lo didn't care what they tried. An unarmed Chinese passenger with emphysema wouldn't be denied a flight.

He fidgeted impatiently for things to start rolling, but they didn't until the flight attendant made her rounds. She asked if he felt comfortable, and he said no, adding that a pint of wine would help. She arched a smile, and produced a flute from the cart she pushed down the aisle.

The wine came from Concord grapes, grown in the American Napa Valley. He relished the sweet taste, and let it linger until most passengers settled into an in-flight nap. Only then did he turn the first bottle's knob, the one used to sustain oxygen in his system.

Sung Lo quickly became assured the bottle supplied oxygen before turning the dial on the second bottle, the one leaking _something else_ into the pressurized cabin.

The flight was a short one, landing in Warsaw. He boarded another flight their, this one headed for Dresden. Airport screener treatment matched the first flight.

This time, He didn't bother with contents from the second bottle, going for the third instead.

This time, carbon monoxide sedated the cabin's occupants. He waited as long as he dared, then that flight attendant's cart. _This should make a fine battering ram._

_**Southwest of Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean**_

**T**he _McKee_ operated at a depth of around 150 meters, the better to hide on the crash of a choppy surface. It was late November, a great time to anticipate a tropical storm. They had chased a storm having the weather service, not normally thought of as a bane to humanity, as a guide for finding a storm. The ocean waves swelled enough to chop any chance of finding them to low odds.

It was broad daylight when the attack began, but that made little tactical difference in this sort of warfare.

The submarine housed twelve cruise missiles in the vertical launch tubes, like any sub dating back to the later _Los Angles_ boats. The _McKee_ also had a score of smaller VLTs, occupied by unguided rockets originally meant for area destruction of convoys. These hauled the payload of one tiny torpedo. _Kilos_ had this potential during the Cold War. These left first, arcing over the horizon, engaged by Patriot batteries far from port, and destroyed seconds after launching the piggybacking torpedoes beneath the waves. Second Anti-missile missiles tried vainly to intercept, but couldn't close the distance.

These torpedoes turned screws upon tapping the water, and braved interception from underwater phalanx guns. They showed up too abruptly, however, and the guns didn't have time to calculate a firing solution before these enemy weapons blasted clearing charges into the undersea mesh know as a torpedo net. A torpedo net is a desperate defensive measure for catching an imminent undersea attack, but the net is now gaping open.

_Cancer_ mobile-suits deftly use terrain masking to sneak in on the sentries as they, overwhelmed by the sudden attack, mishandle taking on the airdropped torpedoes. With the doors thrown wide, the _McKee_ navigates its long-range wake-chasing torpedoes at targets anchored in the lagoon.

Hulls crack open, confirmed by sonar operators. A Cancer dedicates its pincers to tugging apart the net, another to swiping down the barrage balloons topside.

Others quickly plant powder kegs on the shore, or surface to quall the air defense batteries.

Minutes later, the Rickover class's surface-to-surface arsenal patters everything. All units turn south, clear baffles, and then regroup for a long trip.

In the engine room, deuterium and tritium fuse, creating enough heat to operate the boilers at hotter temperatures than older reactors. Their destination is in the Antarctic Circle, where the Preventers look for them.

Over Germany, Lo manages to batter the hinges loose enough to fit a shank between the door and wall. He madly tugs at the door molding. It gives. This the Chinese Moslem improvises as a crowbar, using lever-and-fulcrum mechanics to dislodge the door completely from one hinge. The cart then barrels completely over the door. He's in.

Two pilots lay slumped at the controls. Sung unbuckles the pilot, drags him over one hip, and rests the limp body on the fallen door.

This exerted him, caused him to return to the breathing mask. He sits in the pilot chair, eyes closed, expanding his chest as much as the body allowed.

The autopilot had done its job, he noted, as the martyr nudged the plane's attitude toward the ground. Frankfurt's skyline is visible. He flips open his wallet, compares the buildings to the picture of the European Central Bank headquarters.

Sung Lo finds it, and lets it loom larger and larger.

Author's Note: The Eurotower of Frankfurt is Europe's key banking tower, and as such, was targeted by a hijacker in January of 2003. At 486 feet (148 meters) and 39 floors, it isn't all that tall in comparison to WTC or towers in Kuala Lamoure, but it does house the European Union's answer to the American Federal Reserve, adding considerable value.

Well, that's pretty much a wrap for the Thanksgiving Story, and I don't yet have anything for the Christmas sequel ready yet. I hate writing true sequels, anyway, but recognize most readers like finality. Well what can I say? Finality can be found in Heero and the lovebirds taking down a dictatorship in Columbia, and Duo and the G-team taking down all remnants in Somalia. This is an epilogue, something writers use to follow the resolution of one struggle, to point out the conflict to come. Chester and Job are just too cunning for a takedown in the allotted frame of the narrative, and I can't just let them fade away.

They hit back because they're strong, and still have unresolved conflicts to fight against the protagonists, so they hit and run toward safety as things close here.

And another thing! If I have any lurkers out there, tell me what you think! Is this Heero approved?


End file.
